


The Prize

by Twilight Fang (Asthenos)



Category: Drive Angry (2011)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-07-26 19:42:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7587337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asthenos/pseuds/Twilight%20Fang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Accountant's secret gets out, several of Hell's worst offenders escape in pursuit of him.  The only thing standing between them and the Accountant is one seriously pissed off and possessive Milton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Although I'm sure that my writing isn't as offensive or as grotesque as the movie, there are still graphic descriptions of violence and non-con that may not be suitable for sensitive readers. You will also run into a fair bit of swear words, so be forewarned.

Milton sat back in one of the roughest bars in the Fiery Pits, throwing back shot after shot of Scotch whiskey in an attempt to drown out the monotony of his afterlife. He’d been damned before and he was now damned again, after being escorted back to the depths of Hell by the Accountant.

 

They’d parted ways back at the gates, with the Accountant being called away to prep for another mission. The Accountant had smiled pleasantly at him and taken away the God Killer – the merciless weapon that Milton had stolen from the Overlord himself. Milton had used it to hold the Accountant at bay until he’d gotten to a point where he was able to get his clutches on Jonah King. But Milton regretted that the one and only time that he’d fired it, he’d caught the Accountant off guard and had actually injured him with it.

 

The Accountant was a fastidious creature with his pristine, smartly fitted suit, white bleached shirt, nicely polished black leather shoes, and purple and black checked tie. And that was just what he wore. He was immaculate looking as well. He had light brown hair, piercing blue eyes, an angular face, and unblemished fair skin. At least his skin had been that way until the bullet Milton had shot left a scar on the Accountant’s left cheek.

 

It was a shame, really, to damage such a perfect creature.

 

Milton narrowed his eyes at the fleshless bartender from behind his dark shades. “Hey, buddy, how ‘bout keeping my glass full?” It was virtually impossible to get drunk in Hell. Not that Milton didn’t give it his best shot every single torturous day of his existence.

 

As soon as the bartender refilled his glass, Milton raised it to his lips again… and paused. From the table behind him, he overheard a fragment of a conversation. Usually he couldn’t give a shit about what the other murderers, rapists, and overthrown dictators gossiped about in their free time. There was too much free time to go around and not enough interesting conversation to fill it with. But, the tail end of the first man’s sentence caught his attention.

 

“He’s got it all set up for that bastard the Accountant,” the man snickered. “He’s had his fill of him. And who wouldn’t? Pretty little thing like that waltzing around in a suit and ordering us around!”

 

“What’s he gonna do?” The second man asked in amusement.

 

“Word is the Accountant is nothing but a fallen angel. He was so bent on justice that he overstepped his boundaries and crossed the line with his methods. Heaven kicked him out. But, when he was kicked out, he was still as pure as undriven snow.”

 

The second man dragged his chair closer to the table so he could whisper conspiratorially to the first man. “You don’t mean…?”

 

“Like I said, just a pretty thing in a suit. Won’t be for long.” He chuckled and banged his jug of beer down noisily onto the table. “We’re going to take our turns with him as soon as he’s caught. Ain’t nothing gonna be pure about him after that.”

 

Milton slammed his own shot glass down onto the bar, forced his stool back, and whipped his arm around to slash the second man’s throat. Before the body could hit the floor, he had stabbed the blade through the first man’s hand, pinning it to the table.

 

“What the fuck?!” The man shouted in inhuman pain, but Milton only dug the knife in deeper.

 

“I want to know who is going after the Accountant, and how,” he said coldly, with barely any tonal infliction in his voice.

 

“What’s it to you?! You want a piece of him? Get in line!”

 

Milton grabbed the man’s other arm and broke it in two places over his knee. Although the man screamed in agony, nobody else in the bar moved to intervene. It was just that kind of place.

 

“I’m not gonna ask you again. When and where is this going down, and who planned it?”

 

“Reggie! One-eyed Reggie! He set a trap back on Earth to lure the Accountant there. He’s gonna get him tonight… in Ohio.”

 

Milton yanked the knife out of the table, adjusted his grip, and stabbed the man in the heart. Both men would need a few hours to cycle back from limbo before being tossed back into their dead bodies. Milton left the temporarily dead corpses to return to his resting place. He picked up all the supplies he would need to break out of Hell – again – and set off in search of the new breach in the gate that he’d been working on.

 

* * *

 

The Accountant wandered through the streets of a small town on the outskirts of Ohio, comically enjoying the sights and sounds of the human realm. Of course he didn’t look out of place, not with his nice expensive suit and overly arrogant smile. It was his behavior that drew attention to him. He lingered too long in front of shop windows, abruptly asked total strangers unsettling questions, and became threatening when he encountered individuals whom he knew were destined for a hellish afterlife. And then there was the way that he practically strutted down the street, as if he were on a runway or auditioning for a gangster movie.

 

He was hunting down One-eyed Reggie – the psychotic serial killer slash rapist slash cult worshipper. The big bear of a man had escaped – something that was becoming more of a trend after Milton had accomplished it so smoothly – and was back on Earth accumulating a pile of corpses. Both human and animal. Son-of-a-bitch cult wannabe!

 

The Accountant tried to have no feelings about the men he hunted one way or the other. But when it came to animals and children, he felt particularly hard pressed to remain neutral because he had a disdain for those that preyed on the helpless and innocent. Satan himself was sick and tired of the endless tributes that kept coming his way. Because animals and children were innocent of any sins – well, most of them anyway – the Accountant was charged with removing them from Hell and delivering them to Heaven instead. Nothing more uncomfortable for a fallen angel than to have to show his face at Heaven’s gates – the peaceful utopia that he’d been banished from. A place where his violent nature was not welcome.

 

After a few blocks, the Accountant found himself following a rural highway, tracking it all the way up to a massive cornfield. He’d been walking for a good forty kilometers now. Not long enough to get tired, but he’d had plenty of time to grow bored.

 

One-eyed Reggie was nothing if not predictable, and repetitive. Same old crime scene. Organs strewn into a ditch and body parts scattered across the cornfield.

 

The Accountant was careful with where he stepped as he entered the cornfield, pushing past the tall cornstalks that had yet to be harvested to find a narrow path. But what was careful for him looked like overly graceful maneuvering to the human eye. He touched nothing and nothing touched him.

 

“You found me faster than I’d thought.” A voice called out from behind the Accountant.

 

The Accountant spun on his heel to come face to face with the big, hairy, burly One-eyed Reggie. The Accountant prided himself on his love for anything aesthetically pleasing, and Reggie was anything but. The middle-aged man was filthy, unkempt, smelled, and had lost three teeth to tooth decay.   Not to mention that he only had one eye. The other eye he’d lost to some willful whore who had had the good sense to gouge it out before her untimely demise.

 

“Reggie, how nice of you to be cooperative.” The Accountant stood his ground firmly, preparing to summon the gateway that would bring them back to the Bridge of Inferno. “Playtime is over.”

 

“Naw, it’s just begun.” Reggie lunged at the Accountant, throwing his overbearing weight at the slender creature. He wasn’t surprised when the Accountant smoothly stepped aside to avoid the attack, coming within a millimeter of brushing up against a cornstalk.

 

But again, the Accountant touched nothing and nothing touched him. The only time any human had broken through his defenses was when Milton had shot at him with the God Killer. He’d probably deserved it considering how distracted he’d been at the time. Nobody but Milton had the ability to distract him.

 

“Your attacks are just as infantile as they’ve always been.” The Accountant sighed and then smiled smugly at Reggie. “I shall enjoy turning them against you.”

 

“And I’m gonna enjoy tearing into you,” Reggie growled, throwing a handful of sand into the Accountant’s face.

 

“As I said, infantile…” The Accountant brushed the sand off of his expensive suit… and swayed on his feet. “What was that?”

 

“I got it from the Pool of Acquiescence. I’m sure you know what its powers are.” Reggie approached the Accountant without hesitation, causing the creature to back away clumsily. “The sand gets into your body and makes you weak. Makes you easy.” He laughed when a look of anxiety – an emotion that was undoubtedly foreign to the fallen angel – entered those blue eyes.

 

Still not fully aware of Reggie’s intentions, the Accountant grabbed hold of a nearby cornstalk and ripped it out of the ground. “That area is off limits. Only Satan himself has access to it for his own nefarious needs. You can consider yourself sealed in a lava pit for all eternity over this.”

 

“Add it to my list of crimes,” Reggie snarled, raising his arms to shield his face when the Accountant whacked the cornstalk at him with inhuman force. Although strong and fast, the attack didn’t faze Reggie. It would take more than that to slow down a man who was already dead.

 

The Accountant pulled back the cornstalk, twisted lightly on his heel, and prepared to ram the end of the stalk straight through Reggie’s torso. On a regular day, he wouldn’t have had any problem doing that. So, when he tripped and crashed sideways into the bed of leaves and stalks that Reggie had trampled on, the Accountant knew he was in trouble. He tried to push himself back to his feet, but one of his ankles was tangled in a mess of dry roots, and the sleeves of his suit jacket snagged on dry husks. There was a thin haze obstructing his vision, and a dampening fog dulling his mind.

 

Reggie proudly observed his handiwork for a moment before crouching down to the Accountant and slipping a greasy hand around that slender neck. He suddenly clamped down hard, cutting off the fallen angel’s air supply and effectively choking him. “I’m gonna have a helluva good time with you,” he promised. He pulled the Accountant up against him by his throat, ignoring the fingers that clawed at his hands, peeling back flesh. He kept the Accountant in that position, struggling and now gasping for air, as he unzipped his pants and pulled his monstrous erection loose. He hadn’t been this turned on since the first innocent he’d raped and slaughtered.

 

The Accountant was finding it incredibly difficult to stay conscious with his air supply cut off and the pressure on his throat nauseatingly uncomfortable. He had never thought that he was capable of losing consciousness. Or that a simple human would have the power to incapacitate him. But when Reggie’s other hand crept over his chest, pushing inside his suit jacket to cruelly pinch one of his nipples through his shirt, the Accountant felt new emotions being forced to the surface. He knew at once that he didn’t like these new emotions because they made him feel worse about the situation. He wasn’t accustomed to feeling shame and he hated feeling fear even more. But he was determined not to react, not to give Reggie the perverse satisfaction of seeing him squirm.

 

“I don’t believe that you can’t feel this,” Reggie taunted, relaxing his grip on the Accountant’s throat for a few seconds.

 

“Go fuck yourself!” The Accountant cursed, unable to lower his head to inspect the ground in front of him. But he still had his sense of touch. He gave up on trying to rip Reggie’s hand apart and instead began to comb the ground with his fingers, searching for anything thick and hard enough to take out Reggie’s other eye.

 

“That’s the fire that I was looking for.” Reggie tightened his grip again, causing the Accountant to violently choke. “I’m gonna put it out for good.” He shoved the Accountant forward, onto his hands and knees, and began to grope his ass.

 

The discomforting fear that the Accountant had been feeling multiplied tenfold when he felt that disgusting hand squeezing him through the thin fabric of his tailored pants. Why did humans find this kind of activity physically stimulating? It was deplorable. Allowing oneself to be touched like that. The Accountant began to panic when Reggie’s hand pushed down the back of his pants, tearing the stitching out of the waistband. The feeling of a roughened palm scratching over the slight curve of his buttocks coaxed a strangled sound of desperation out of him.

 

Reggie, who up until that point had been breathing harshly by the Accountant’s ear – no doubt getting off on the whole thing – suddenly made a sound that sounded a heck of a lot like physical anguish. The hand on the Accountant’s throat was forcefully removed, as was the one down his pants. Left with nothing holding him up, the Accountant fell back to the ground, gasping for air.

 

“You could’ve had any piece of tail you wanted back there,” a cold, calculating voice muttered to Reggie, causing the one-eyed menace to growl in fury. “You screwed up big time when you targeted this one here. You don’t get to touch this one.”

 

When the Accountant looked up to see who his rescuer was, he was stunned to find Milton standing there with a pair of pliers jammed up against Reggie’s throat. Both of Reggie’s hands were hanging uselessly at his sides, bones protruding from his wrists.  

 

“What business is it of yours?!” Reggie demanded to know, trying to escape Milton’s clutches.

 

“The Accountant is mine,” Milton stated possessively. “He belongs to me!” Having said his piece, he calmly snapped the pliers together and ripped out Reggie’s throat. He tossed the body carelessly into the cornfield behind him and crouched down to the Accountant. He’d never seen the fair creature looking so unbalanced or afraid. “What’d he do to you?”

 

The Accountant blinked and tried to regain his composure. But he failed, unable to push himself up off of the ground or erase the feeling of helplessness that Reggie had sparked in him. “He stole sand from the Pool of Acquiescence…”

 

“Did he hurt you?” Milton tenderly caressed the Accountant’s face.

 

The Accountant wanted to put on a phony smile for Milton to assure him that no damage had been done, but he couldn’t. And the rogue was touching him in a way that no one ever had before. He was extremely confused and afraid.

 

“We need to get out of here before someone finds the body.” Milton pulled the Accountant to his feet and led him to the black sports car that he’d jacked from one of the nicer neighborhoods. “Get in.” He noticed how the fallen angel was looking at him suspiciously, trying to find a weapon to defend himself with. “Listen, blue eyes,” Milton said roughly, pulling the Accountant into a fierce embrace. “You’re mine now. And I protect what belongs to me.”

 

The Accountant looked stunned and maybe a little softened by Milton’s possessiveness. Milton adjusted his shades and ran his hands through his longish blond-dyed hair.

 

“That crap’ll wear off in an hour or so. We’ll be on the highway the whole time so you have nothing to worry about.” Milton got behind the wheel and revved the engine, impatiently waiting for the Accountant to get into the passenger’s side of his own volition. As soon as the Accountant had settled himself into the leather seat and closed the door, Milton floored it.

 

The Accountant watched the scenery fly by, gradually regaining his senses as he felt the effects of the sand begin to wear off. He tried to shake off the negative feelings that continued to assault him, but found that there was no off button for them. And now they were mingled with something else, a feeling towards Milton that he could not define. “You fucking escaped… again?” The Accountant asked conversationally as he tried to straighten up his damaged suit.

 

“Obviously.” Milton resisted the urge to tell the Accountant to stop swearing. When most normal people cursed, they did it with a furious or challenging tone. Profanity was invented to incite violence and start fist fights. But not when the Accountant used it. To the Accountant, swear words were nothing but overused adverbs that carried the same weight as the verbs that followed them.

 

“For what reason this time? I assumed that you’d already resolved the angst in your afterlife.”

 

“I had. But then I overheard two of Reggie’s goons talking about hurting you and I had to get out again. I couldn’t let them do that, blue eyes. I just couldn’t.”

 

The Accountant felt a faintly unpleasant heat rising from his neck to his face. “Why do you keep calling me that?”

 

“It’s better than referring to you as the Accountant. Unless you have a real name, I’m just gonna keep on calling you that.”

 

“Milton…” The Accountant touched Milton’s arm, feeling the instinctive need to express his gratitude for how the ruffian had taken care of Reggie for him. “Although I question your misguided belief that I _belong to you_ , I am very appreciative of your timely interference.” A shadow of his usual playful cockiness lifted the corners of the Accountant’s lips up into a smile.

 

Milton reacted in a completely unpredictable and crazy way, as he was well known for. He hit the emergency flashers and pulled over to the side of the highway. As soon as he’d unfastened his seatbelt, he yanked the Accountant close by the collar of his suit jacket. “Never do that while I’m driving,” he advised. “I don’t need anymore incentive to take you outside and screw you on the hood of my car.” When he was sure that the Accountant had gotten the message, Milton pushed him back into the passenger’s seat and pulled back onto the highway.

 

The Accountant sat there feeling lightheaded and stunned by Milton’s very real threat. “You would do that?” He asked in disbelief.

 

“Oh yeah. In broad daylight too. So, don’t tempt me.”

 

For some reason, the idea of Milton making good on his threat affected the Accountant differently than the unwanted touch of Reggie’s hands on his body had. He wondered if he would still entertain the thought after the sand was completely out of his system. Seeing as how he had no choice but to stick with Milton until that happened, he figured that he would soon find out.


	2. Chapter 2

By the time Milton began to near the little town by the lake – the one that the Accountant had crossed through earlier that morning – the afternoon was fading fast. Daylight blues and yellows slipped away to be replaced by dark purples and grays, a brilliant sunset making the transition even more spectacular.

 

The Accountant sat calmly in the passenger’s seat, inhaling the overpowering smell of new leather, which was competing with Milton’s unique scent. His olfactory senses were paranormally sensitive, alerting him not only to defining odors, but also giving him a timeline of when a person was meant to die. At times, the ability did feel quite morbid, but then again, so was his job.

 

“Milton…,” the Accountant broke the silence as they drove into the town.

 

“John.”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“My first name is John. Try using it.” Milton didn’t take his eyes away from the road up ahead. He needed to find a hotel, or motel, or somewhere to spend the night. He’d been up for days without sleep. Escaping Hell and chasing after the Accountant had accelerated the nasty side effects of sleep deprivation. A nagging drowsiness kept trying to pull his hands off of the steering wheel, and it felt like a percussion band was rattling around in his head. Dead or not, he needed some shuteye.

 

“John,” the Accountant started again, enunciating the name with extra care. “I would like to stop off at the gentlemen’s store up on the right.”

 

Milton made a rude sound but gave no sign of slowing down. “I’m sure you would. And I’d like to get laid. But neither of us is going to get what we want, so just sit there and keep quiet.”

 

As Milton approached the small strip mall on the right, he suddenly had the steering wheel yanked out of his grasp as the Accountant swerved the vehicle into the parking lot at 70km/h. Milton barely had enough time to slam on the brakes as the nimble fingers brushing up against his own wrenched the wheel back and forth, expertly guiding the newly refurbished, black 1960 Chevrolet Impala convertible into the closest parking spot to the door.

 

“Jesus Christ!” Milton threw the car into park and snatched the Accountant’s hand before he could take it off the steering wheel. “Do you have any idea how much a vintage car like this goes for? It’s in mint condition!”

 

“No, and quite frankly, I don’t give a shit.” The Accountant gave Milton a wry smile, wondrously looking at the hand that was covering his own. “This is a custom fitted Bespoke suit. And it’s damaged. I need a new one.”

 

For a second, it looked like Milton was going to tell the Accountant to screw off. They had to keep moving and put as much distance between themselves and Reggie’s mutilated corpse as possible. Before members of Reggie’s gang showed up, looking for a piece of the action. But the Accountant looked so eager to go shopping that Milton just couldn’t say no to him. He also figured that this might be the Accountant’s way of dealing with the disturbing situation he’d just been rescued from. Maybe he needed some stress relief, and shopping was his way of getting it. Milton did take the time to suggestively stroke his thumb over the Accountant’s hand, watching that perfectly composed face falter for a brief instant, before he relented and pulled the keys from the ignition. “Okay, blue eyes. Just get what you need and get out.”

 

The gentlemen’s store was one of those places where you didn’t just walk in off the street. Customers were few and far between, but the ones who could afford the merchandise spent enough in one day to keep the store’s profits high for months at a time.

 

The Accountant strolled into the store as if he lived there, being approached immediately by one of the snooty sales clerks. The older gentleman undoubtedly recognized the value of what the Accountant had on him and was only too glad to entertain him. At least until he noticed the way the Accountant was holding up his pants.

 

“How may I help you, sir?” The sales clerk asked, visually inspecting the damage that had been done to such a fine example of Italian workmanship. His graying mustache twitched in disapproval at the state of the Accountant’s suit.

 

“I had an accident and wrecked my favorite suit,” the Accountant complained. “I need a new one.”

 

“I see. Is there any particular brand or style that you had in mind?”

 

Milton stuck close to the door, eyeing the posh clothing on display while the sales clerk that the Accountant had engaged gave him a withering look out of the corner of his eye. Okay, so maybe he should have waited in the car. Nobody would think that he’d come in with the Accountant because they were like polar opposites. The Accountant was neat and clean, and oh-so-pleasant to look at, while Milton’s straggly, unwashed hair, black jean jacket, black t-shirt, and ripped blue jeans screamed _biker gang_. And then there was the fact that he absolutely refused to take off his sunglasses inside the store.

 

“Yes. I would like the most expensive suit you have for my age group. Don’t go showing me anything for old fucks because I won’t try it on.”

 

The sales clerk balked at the Accountant’s sudden use of vulgar language, as well as the insulting remark about old men. The comment had been so casual and without the proper infliction that it might not have been taken as an insult if ninety-nine percent of the general population didn’t know what the word _fuck_ meant. It wasn’t hard to see that the sales clerk was debating over whether to go for a quick sale, or kick the Accountant out of the store, along with the dirty bum that seemed to be casing the place. In the end, his greed won out and he led the Accountant deeper into the store.

 

There were a few stylish suits of impeccable quality at the far back corner of the store, where normal customers wouldn’t feel inclined to wander. They were well out of the price range of even the most affluent businessmen, so it wasn’t uncommon to go at least half a year without selling one. The sales clerk glanced at the Accountant, and then at the selection, and then back at the Accountant.   For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out how old this odd customer was. He seemed bright and energetic, and there was an air of mischievousness to him that leaned towards the younger end of the scale, but it was quickly contradicted by a superiority that demanded he be taken seriously. And then there were his deep blue eyes, filled with a knowledge that the sales clerk couldn’t hope to comprehend.

 

“How about this one, sir? It’s our latest model.” He chose one based on how little altering it would need for a man so slender. Most of the other suits were designed for men with broader shoulders, or who were bigger in girth.

 

“It’ll have to do,” the Accountant replied impatiently.

 

“The fitting rooms are over here, sir.”

 

As the Accountant followed him into the fitting rooms, he rattled off a list of items that he wanted in addition to the suit. “I’ll also be needing a new shirt, tie, socks, shoes, cufflinks, and undergarments. Think you can manage that?”

 

“Very well, sir,” the sales clerk ground out through his clenched teeth. “May I ask what is wrong with the shoes you are currently wearing?”

 

“They’re scuffed.”

 

“We can polish them for you.”

 

“Don’t waste my time.” The Accountant smiled back at Milton before disappearing into the fitting room.

 

Milton stood near the door with his arms folded in front of his chest. Thankfully there was only one sales clerk in the store because he didn’t need some asshole gaping at him while he loitered in what was probably the driest store he’d ever been in. Dry as in boring. Boring as in he wanted to shoot something. Or someone.

 

It was a good ninety minutes before the Accountant finally reappeared from the fitting room, looking quite handsome in his new attire. Milton couldn’t help but rake his eyes up and down that trim figure, forgetting how pissed off he was for how long he’d been forced to wait. The new suit was a little different than the old one. Dark, but more defined, and with tiny, platinum gold cufflinks of the ace of spades that really stood out. The tie was more magenta than purple this time, with a random black, swirling pattern that was probably meant to be artistic. But what the hell did Milton know about clothing anyhow!

 

“Shall I put your old clothes into a bag, sir?”

 

“Absolutely not. Dump them.” The Accountant followed the sales clerk to the cash register and calmly watched him ring up the purchases. Milton moved in closer, curious to see what the total would come to.

 

“That’ll be three hundred and twenty-three thousand, five hundred and sixty-two dollars, sir. How would you like to pay?”

 

It was all Milton could do to keep his jaw from dropping onto the floor. “What kind of piece of shit suit costs twice as much as a collectible car?!” He was shocked even further when the Accountant suddenly flipped an ominous coin into the air, the reflected glare from the overhead lights temporarily blinding the sales clerk. As it sailed back down, it turned into what looked like a wallet. The Accountant caught and opened it, displaying the fake FBI card that he’d been abusing of late. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding!” This was not going to end well.

 

The sales clerk looked at the Accountant in utter disbelief and bewilderment. “Sir, that’s your FBI card.”

 

“That’s right. Charge it to the bureau.”

 

“Sir, you will need to pay first and request that the bureau reimburses you at a later time. We can’t charge anything to the bureau, or any other organization for that matter, without approval.” After a brief, anxious pause, the sales clerk asked again. “How would you like to pay?” Behind the counter, his hand seemed to be feeling for something.

 

That did it! Milton pulled out his shiny .500 Smith and Wesson Magnum, pointing it between the sales clerk’s beady eyes. “How’s this for payment, asshole?! Now, get your hands onto the counter where I can see them!”

 

“John, is that really necessary?” The Accountant looked surprised by Milton’s hostile behavior. “I was negotiating.”

 

“Look, blue eyes,” Milton began condescendingly, “even if that card were real, which it isn’t, the FBI doesn’t give its agents suits that cost over three hundred grand! Now seeing as how I just turned this into a robbery, why don’t you go pick yourself some more nice shirts and ties and then get your ass back into the car.”

 

The Accountant shrugged and did as he was told, not paying attention when Milton had the sales clerk empty the cash register, and then knocked him senseless.

 

Once back in the car, Milton leaned over the Accountant to manually throw down the lock. “No more stops. You’re staying in this car until I say you can get out. Got it?” When the Accountant said nothing, Milton took it as a sign of obedience and flew back onto the main road. “You’ve never spent much time down here, have you? Earth, I mean.” He should have phrased it as a rhetorical question because the Accountant’s mannerisms, speech patterns, and plain ignorance on how the world functioned was evidence enough

 

“How much time is not a lot of time?”

 

“Before the deal with Heaven, you’d never been down here, had you?”

 

At the mention of Heaven, the Accountant’s demeanor completely changed. He became quiet and sullen, losing interest in the stack of clothing that he’d neatly piled onto his lap. Milton felt guilty for dredging up the topic that he’d been trying to ignore for the past four hours. But his nerves had been mangled by that unplanned robbery and he needed to get it out of his system.

 

“You know the reason why Reggie came after you, right?”

 

“ _He_ came after _me_?” The Accountant let more of his emotions slip, revealing his confusion at that question. “I believe you’ve got your facts messed up. I was sent to bring him back to Hell, not the other way around.”

 

“No, he escaped from Hell to lure you into a trap. Why do you think he had that sand on him? Who knows what else he picked up in Hell to use against you.”

 

The Accountant balled up one of the shirts in his fists and willed the memory of what had happened in the cornfield to the back of his mind. He didn’t want to remember what a filthy human’s hands felt like on his skin, or the offensive smell of a man in heat that had assaulted his keen senses. Come to think of it, Milton often smelled of arousal before and after he hooked up with some nameless floozy along the road. The Accountant didn’t know why he hated it, but he just did. He considered Milton to be tasteless and not very selective for shagging anything with a part-timer nametag.

 

Not having much of a choice when the Accountant was refusing to acknowledge the conversation, Milton just came out and said it. “He wants you because you’re a virgin. You are, aren’t you? The whole fallen angel story isn’t just some bullshit they’re spreading around?”

 

No sooner had the words left Milton’s lips than the Accountant was staring at him, the hurt and fear evident in his all too human expression. “Where did you hear that?”

 

“Two of Reggie’s henchmen were gossiping. I killed them for it. Not that it’s gonna make much of a difference. So, is it true?” For the first time since Milton had rescued the Accountant, he removed his sunglasses to make eye contact with the fallen angel.

 

The Accountant was the first to lower his eyes, not liking how the atmosphere between them had become thick with tension. He could trust Milton, couldn’t he? After all, the human had taken care of Reggie and shown a peculiar fascination with him that wasn’t fueled by the need to possess him. Or, at least not if he were unwilling. Milton had even taken him shopping. He’d been pleased with Milton’s reaction to his new suit and with the way Milton had handled the bill. But this was a secret that he’d been holding onto since the day he’d been cast out of Heaven and thrown at Satan’s feet. He was certain that even the ruler of Hell was unaware of his lack of sexual expertise. If Satan had even suspected such a thing, he would have found himself forced into sexual servitude for the masses. Now that Reggie’s men were talking about it out in the open, it wouldn’t be long before Satan himself demanded to verify the legitimacy of such accusations. The Accountant knew what such a verification process would entail and it terrified him.

 

“I would never do that to you,” Milton broke the silence, guessing what the fallen angel was worried about.

 

“I would never let you,” the Accountant shot back with a bit more bite.

 

“Look, sunshine,” Milton said crabbily. “You can keep swinging back and forth between playing dumb and acting all tough, but we both know that you have your weaknesses. You’re not untouchable. Reggie’s already proven that. Now, I swore that I’d protect you and I will. If it comes down to that.”

 

“Why? What stake do you have in all this?”

 

Milton took his eyes off the road again to place his hand on the Accountant’s thigh. He squeezed it affectionately and just kept his hand there. “We have a connection, blue eyes, you and me. I find you incredibly fascinating. Maybe it’s because of what you are that I’m attracted to you. Don’t get me wrong, I know you’re no angel because I’ve seen you in action. But I don’t think you belong in Hell either. There’s an innocence to you that I can almost taste. Having you around just makes death easier… sweeter.”

 

The Accountant looked down at where Milton’s hand was stroking his thigh and decided that the sensation was pleasant. So, he let Milton continue and took a very dangerous risk with his personal safety. “It’s true. I have never been with a man or woman. Those were Heaven’s rules… and I had no desire to break them with any of the infected, lowlifes in Hell.”

 

That had apparently been exactly what Milton had been waiting to hear. His hand crept higher up the Accountant’s thigh, stopping a few centimeters shy of touching him in a very inappropriate place. “Good. That’ll make it all the more sweeter.”

 

“I never said that I would allow you that intimacy,” the Accountant protested, sounding flustered.

 

“When the time comes, you will. You can trust me on that.” Milton cockily massaged the Accountant’s thigh some more, before pulling off into the parking lot of a roadside motel.

 

* * *

 

Inside the motel, right by the front desk, Milton accidentally stepped onto a cockroach. The Accountant made a face as Milton tried to scrape it off of the bottom of his shoe.

 

“After all the money you stole, why couldn’t we stay in a classier hotel?” The Accountant asked in an obnoxiously loud voice.

 

“Can you shut up? We need to be laying low.”

 

“Oh, right. And laying low for all you criminals means bedding with roaches,” the Accountant added sarcastically. “This is usually the type of place where you pick up some voluptuous woman for a wild night of sex and booze, isn’t it?”

 

Thankfully, there was still no one at the front desk, so Milton shoving the Accountant back into it didn’t draw any attention. “First of all, no one actually uses the word voluptuous. Second, I don’t want anymore of those women. If I need something, I’ll be getting it from you, so you needn’t worry yourself about it.” He was almost ready to back off when the Accountant did something strange and unexpected. Before he could move away, the Accountant leaned forward with his eyes half closed, his long eyelashes brushing against his high cheekbones, and arched his neck so that he could graze his cheek against Milton’s. Their skin barely touched, but the sensation was electric and exciting. Apparently, his threat had triggered a primal response in the Accountant, drawing the innocent creature to him. Milton held still, allowing the Accountant to nuzzle his shoulder, breathing in his scent. Before the Accountant could pull away, Milton moved in closer, trapping him against the desk, and pressed his lips against the exposed skin between the Accountant’s shirt collar and his ear. The Accountant made a small noise and tried to slip away, but Milton held him fast, kissing up his neck until he reached the most sensitive spot, drawing a startled moan from his fallen angel. He lightly licked him there, gradually increasing the pressure, and then sucking hard until he was sure it would leave a mark.

 

When Milton released the Accountant, he smirked evilly at the way his fallen angel was trembling and breathing hard. There was an unfocused look to his blue eyes that indicated just how deeply Milton had affected him. And, as Milton had imagined, the Accountant’s flesh reacted similarly to a human’s, sporting a dark purplish bruise where Milton had kissed him.

 

“Hey, assholes,” a peevish feminine voice interrupted Milton’s hot moment. “If you’re gonna be doing that, you’d better pay for the room first.”

 

“Fuck yourself,” Milton cursed, pulling out one of the wad of bills that he’d pocketed from the gentlemen’s clothing store.

 

The Accountant recovered slowly, pushing away from the desk as a second female joined the first. The second woman was a quiet brunette who obviously didn’t like her job because she made no effort to greet the customers in front of her. However, as soon as she spotted the Accountant, she smiled sweetly at him, and he at her. “May we have a room with some privacy?” He asked politely. “And with no bed bugs, cigarette smoke, or used condoms on the floor? Sandy?” He read her nametag and placed both elbows onto the desk to watch her take over for her lazy coworker.

 

“Sure. Can I have your name please?”

 

“The Accountant.”

 

Sandy giggled and blushed at what she thought was the handsome man’s idea of a joke. “No, really. I need to write down a name.”

 

“If you only need one name, you can take out _the_ but leave in _Accountant._ ”

 

Sandy shrugged and scribbled it in. “And your… companion’s name?”

 

Milton possessively wrapped an arm around the Accountant’s waist. “I’m sure you mean, lover, darling.”

 

“Oh! I see…” She toned down her charm a few notches but couldn’t take her eyes off the Accountant. “Here you are. You’re in room two-oh-five. It’s facing the pool.”

 

“Thank you very much, Sandy.” The Accountant graciously took the key, not minding Milton’s arm on him, and then set his gaze on Sandy’s coworker. Nothing changed in his expression really. There was no malice in his eyes. No anger in his voice. But there was something about him that was terrifying when he spoke to the other woman. “You, bitch,” he addressed the dark haired woman, nodding when she stared at him questioningly. “Yes, you. I’ll be seeing you before Christmas.”

 

Milton didn’t comment as they took the key up to the room that they’d been assigned, but he knew what _I’ll be seeing you_ meant. It was a euphemism the Accountant used to indicate that that person would not be long for this world. That was the Accountant’s occupation in life, after all, determining which humans were unworthy of Heaven and when they were to be shipped off to Hell. The more Milton thought about it, the more grateful he felt for going into Hell unemployed. He didn’t envy the Accountant’s job one bit.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

It took a few minutes for Milton to get settled in the motel room, checking the door and bathroom window to make sure that both closed and locked okay. After that, he combed the room from top to bottom, looking for any electronic surveillance devices. It didn’t really matter that he was already dead, nullifying any future illegal activities that he saw fit to participate in. Old habits died hard. That, and, he really didn’t like people spying or eavesdropping on him.

 

On the opposite side of the room, the Accountant was busy with his own inspection. He’d removed all the sheets from both twin beds and was scanning every millimeter of the mattresses and pillows, searching for bed bugs or any body fluids belonging to the previous occupants. He was nothing if not meticulous.

 

“What’re you gonna do if you find something?” Milton asked distractedly as he felt under the bedside table for listening devices or spy cameras.

 

“Ask for another room.”

 

“Which will probably be worse than this one.” Milton gave a short laugh, mocking the Accountant, and moved onto the bed frame.

 

“It’s not too late to change to the Hilton,” the Accountant countered, tossing a pillow that failed his inspection test onto the floor.

 

“Let me ask you something. If Reggie and his men attack us during the night, how are we gonna escape from the twenty-fifth floor of the Hilton when both elevators are blocked and the only way out is a suicidal jump down to the parking lot?”

 

“John, you can’t die. You’re already dead,” the Accountant calmly informed his traveling companion.

 

“But it’ll take me at least an hour before I can recover from that. That’s plenty of time for Reggie to grab you and do hell knows what with you. I can’t risk that.” Milton marched into the washroom next, not noticing the agitated look the Accountant gave him. When he came out, he was holding a crushed, mini spy-cam in his hand. “Sick motherfuckers,” he cursed, going straight for the door. He opened it, whipped the spy-cam outside, over the railing, and into the swimming pool. He slammed and locked the door again, having to push it extra hard because the wood was peeling off at the bottom, causing it to jam. “You hungry?” Picking up the Yellow Pages next to the telephone, he began to flip through it, looking for something to appease his empty stomach.

 

“Why wouldn’t I be? I haven’t eaten anything since this morning.”

 

“I dunno. I wasn’t even sure if you were capable of eating.” Milton found an ad listing for fried chicken. A five-piece set supposedly came with two free drinks, French fries, coleslaw, and a collectible toy. “How about chicken?” He jumped when he looked over his shoulder and found the Accountant right there, gazing down at the ad. “Geez! Don’t do that! Can you make some noise, like normal folk do?”

 

“I thought you liked me because I wasn’t normal,” the Accountant quipped. “I’ll pass on the chicken. At a price like that, it probably comes with a guarantee of food poisoning the next morning.”

 

“You can get food poisoning?”

 

“I wouldn’t know. I’m not stupid enough to eat it in the first place.”

 

“Oh-kay then…” Milton flipped to the next page. “How about a hamburger set?”

 

“Cheeseburger,” the Accountant insisted, finding the information listed agreeable. “With a salad and a Perrier.”

 

Milton phoned in their order and sat down on the bed to wait for the delivery person. He patted the space beside him and waited for the Accountant to join him. The Accountant followed the gesture but didn’t sit very close to Milton, appearing uncharacteristically nervous. So, Milton moved closer to him. He needed to get something off of his chest. The _something_ that had been bothering him for the past twenty minutes. “Why do you always flirt with the cute girls?” He watched the Accountant turn to him with a blank expression. “You know what I mean. Sandy? The girl at the front desk. You were getting awfully close to her. And it’s not the first time either. I’ve seen you do it before. You find a pretty girl, intrude into her personal space, and kind of sniff the air around her. I thought it was weird and kinky before, but it’s not gonna fly with me now that I’ve promised to stop banging the waitresses.”

 

“I wasn’t flirting with her. I was merely getting her to cooperate by using my charm. I can see how you might think that, considering your limited imagination, but I also occasionally do it with men. In the areas I’m sent to, women are statistically nicer than the men, which is why you’ve only witnessed me doing it to women. And I don’t sniff. I sense. There’s a difference.”

 

“There’s no way I’m gonna sit back and watch you set those bedroom eyes on some random man,” Milton said angrily.

 

“It’s not flirting!” The Accountant insisted. “I never actually touch them, and they are not allowed to touch me. Those are the rules.”

 

“How about what you did to me down there? What was that?” Milton tried to contain his anger but he couldn’t help but feel jealous and annoyed at his fallen angel’s behavior. That anger quickly dissipated when the Accountant leaned in closer to him.

 

“That was flirting, John,” the Accountant admitted. While they were putting everything on the table, the Accountant gingerly ran his fingers over the slight bruise that Milton’s kiss had left behind. “Why did you do this? It’s blatantly obvious. I can’t hide it with my shirt collar.”

 

Milton smirked and grabbed onto the Accountant’s tie, tugging him in closer. “That’s the whole point of marking one’s property, blue eyes, so that everyone can see.” When the Accountant didn’t contradict that statement, on some level accepting Milton’s claim on him, things heated up real fast. Milton caressed the Accountant’s left cheek with his hand, gently tracing the faint scar there. “I’m sorry about this,” he said sincerely. He could feel the Accountant tremble at the touch, but he didn’t pull away so Milton kept his hand there. And then he slowly inched forward, until his lips lightly grazed the Accountant’s. His fallen angel’s lips were warm and soft, but remained firmly sealed against him. Milton tried again, kissing the Accountant gently, the coarse hairs of his short, dark beard lightly scratching against soft skin. When the Accountant continued to stubbornly resist him, Milton released the frightened creature’s tie. Instead, he used his hand to massage the back of the Accountant’s neck, loosening up the tight muscles there. “Just relax,” he said soothingly. “I’m not gonna hurt you.” It was hard to imagine that a creature as powerful as the Accountant was afraid of a little kiss.

 

Milton pressed his lips insistently against the Accountant’s, finally granted entry when his fallen angel trusted him enough to give him what he wanted. He pushed his tongue past those soft lips and into the Accountant’s mouth, tasting a sweet fire that was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. It was sweeter and hotter than the finest brandy, and Milton chased after it, realizing that it was a taste he could get addicted to. Milton explored the Accountant’s mouth, his tongue tangling with the fallen angel’s, drawing a delightful moan out of him. He wrapped one arm around the back of the Accountant’s shoulders and used his other to support the creature’s head as he pushed him down onto the mattress. He was usually impatient when it came to sex, preferring to jump straight to the _fucking_ part because boy could he ever fuck! But that scene had become too familiar, too repetitive. He didn’t want an easy fuck where he left some overeager bedmate sprawled on the comforter, delirious and speechless from the mindless coupling, while he zipped his pants back up and disappeared out the back door. That no longer got him off, because as soon as he’d found his release, the empty feeling returned and he was left with nothing to show for it.

 

Seducing the Accountant was an exciting challenge that Milton felt confident he was up for. He found the perfect creature fascinating, alluring, and just plain off limits. But knowing that only heightened his lust, turning what should have been a simple kiss into a drawn out make-out session. Although unsure and inexperienced, the Accountant was very receptive to Milton’s touch and kisses. His moans were soft and inhibited at first, becoming more desperate when Milton angled his tongue in deeper, keeping their saliva moistened lips in firm contact. Milton unbuttoned the Accountant’s suit jacket and pushed it open, loosening up the tie before undoing it and tossing it onto the floor. He unbuttoned the expensive white shirt next, pausing when the Accountant’s hands clamped onto his wrists.

 

Milton traced the tip of his tongue over the Accountant’s lips, feeling that slender body tremble beneath him. “It’s only foreplay, blue eyes,” he murmured, freeing one hand to yearningly stroke the Accountant’s tousled hair. “I promise.”

 

The Accountant’s voice was unusually soft and completely devoid of any sarcasm as he warmly gazed up at Milton. “Your kisses are enough for now, John.”

 

Milton’s fingers lingered on the third button, debating over whether he should risk going a little further to see if the Accountant liked it. But if he did so, he might lose his fallen angel’s trust, and that was something he wasn’t willing to mess with.

 

“Okay. Just kisses.” Milton smiled down at him and left the buttons alone. He was only too happy to cover the Accountant’s mouth for another hot kiss. The Accountant released his wrists to grasp his shoulders instead, pulling himself up and into the next kiss. Who knew that kissing could be so satisfying? Before the Accountant, Milton wouldn’t have thought so. He usually considered it to be nothing more than an unnecessary warm-up to the real action and often opted to skip it. But to the Accountant, kissing was something new and sensual that he couldn’t get enough of, which was fine with Milton because he had plenty to give.

 

After several minutes of locked lips and a particularly intense moment when his fallen angel had experimentally sucked on his tongue, Milton pulled away to catch his breath. The Accountant pressed two fingers to his lips, which were probably extremely sensitive and tingling by now, and just lay there in a sort of daze.

 

“Let’s take a break,” Milton suggested, eagerly eyeing the bathroom on the other side of the room.

 

“What’s wrong?” The Accountant asked, a twinge of concern coloring his voice. Kissing Milton had made him more attuned to his companion’s moods, something that he hadn’t anticipated at all. And contrary to how the kisses had forced down his guard and left an intriguing warmth in his belly, Milton had responded by becoming impatient and wound up.

 

“Nothing’s _wrong_.”

 

“Then what are you doing?”

 

“I don’t think that’s a conversation we need to be having at the ‘just kissing’ stage,” Milton replied awkwardly. He gazed down at his fallen angel, spread out on the bed before him, all glowing and breathless, and took off for the bathroom. After he’d locked the door, he furiously set to work bringing himself to a quick and messy release. He wasn’t sure how much the Accountant knew about what two men did together, and he had no inclination to go about explaining it if it came to that. Thankfully, the Accountant seemed to operate a lot on instinct and was easy to read when he wanted to be pleasured, and when he wanted to stop. Milton would just have to rely on that and hope that things proceeded at a natural, steady pace.

 

Once Milton was done, he flushed the toilet and returned to the room just in time to answer the door to the delivery girl with their dinner. Although they ate in silence, the Accountant’s attitude towards him had completely changed. Apparently what was a trivial amount of intimacy for Milton held a lot more meaning for his enthralling companion. The Accountant had removed his jacket, leaving the top two buttons of his shirt undone, and pressed up close against Milton’s side as they ate. It might have been Milton’s imagination, but he swore that he could practically feel waves of tranquility vibrating off of the Accountant. There was a lot that he didn’t know about this remarkably sensitive creature and he figured that it would take time to learn more.

 

* * *

 

After dinner, Milton and the Accountant took turns in the shower. Because the Accountant went in first and took an awfully long time, there was no hot water left by the time Milton worked up the energy to get his tired ass in there. He was also too exhausted to comment when the Accountant stepped out of the bathroom wearing a new white shirt – one of the bonus items that he’d picked up and failed to check the size of – that was far too long in the arms and came down to about mid thigh level. Well, at least he had something else to wear. Milton was fresh out of clothing. He took what he was wearing into the shower with him and scrubbed at his clothes with the half bar of soap that the Accountant had left for him. In tepid water. Once that was over and done with, he wrung out his clothes and hung them up to dry over the towel rack. Then he got back into the shower. This time, he worked the sweat and dirt off of his skin and the grease out of his hair.

 

Hell was a bitch when it came to dirt, pollution, and other unnatural filth. Milton wondered how the Accountant managed to stay so clean and neat looking despite roaming around that god-awful place.

 

By the time Milton rejoined the Accountant, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, he found his fallen angel under the blankets and fast asleep. For a second, Milton just watched him sleep, marveling at how peaceful and innocent he looked. It was quite a different image from the one of the mischievous creature ramming the back of his car with a stolen police cruiser, or magically gliding out of the cab of an out-of-control hydrogen tanker and onto the hood of a nearby car. Not that such reckless behavior put him off in any way.

 

Milton realized that they hadn’t discussed the sleeping arrangements. Were they sleeping in separate beds, or was the Accountant okay with sharing one? Was it just a coincidence or intentional that the Accountant had chosen to sleep in the bed that Milton had originally sat down on? Even if Milton slipped in behind him, it shouldn’t be too big of a deal because the Accountant was wearing that ridiculously large shirt.

 

On second thought, waking up to a man with nothing but a towel covering his essentials might freak him out.

 

Milton leaned over the Accountant to fondly kiss him goodnight and then switched off the bedside lamp. He patted the edge of the other bed, the one with no pillow, and climbed under the bottom sheet, throwing off the blanket and comforter. The events from the past few days had left him sapped of the will to resist sleep, and the energy required to have nightmares. His rest was quiet for a change, leaving him unbothered for several blissful hours.

 

* * *

 

When the Accountant slept, it was usually only to rejuvenate his mortal form and served no practical purpose other than that. He didn’t dream, or if he did, he never remembered his dreams. So, when his earlier encounter with Reggie began to play back in his head, he instantly tried to block it out. He had been doing such a commendable job of denying himself access to that memory thanks to the awe-inspiring distraction Milton had provided him with. Why was it affecting him now? And why couldn’t he wake up? Even as Reggie appeared before him in his dream state, he knew that it wasn’t real and attempted to will himself awake. But, just as he had never had a nightmare before, he also lacked the ability to rouse his fatigued mind from its passivity.

 

Whereas Milton had appeared at a critical moment to save him that afternoon, in the Accountant’s nightmare Reggie could not be stopped. The Accountant tensed in his sleep, forcing his mind to wrench Reggie’s hands off of his body, and block his putrid scent from his senses. He had pushed the whole incident aside after getting into the car with Milton. It had almost seemed like he’d spirited the distressing event out of existence. However, that wasn’t the case at all. The memory hadn’t gone anywhere. It had just lain dormant until the Accountant was too drained to hold it back anymore.

 

As harmless as the Accountant knew the nightmare to be, it didn’t stop him from fighting back against the Reggie in his mind. This facsimile of Reggie was just as ruthless as the real thing, beating the Accountant to the ground of that cornfield and falling on him in a heap of groping hands and foul language.

 

The Accountant was on the verge of panicking when he felt a soothing touch on his face, and then his back. The touch turned into long, smooth strokes down his back, almost as if he were being petted. Gradually, the nightmare evaporated into fragments, and then nothing.

 

“It’s just a bad dream,” Milton’s voice said calmly, somewhere close to the Accountant’s ear.

 

“John?” The Accountant felt Milton’s solid form behind him on the bed and tried to shift over to face him.

 

Milton placed a hand on the Accountant’s hip and stopped him from moving. He’d lost the towel somewhere on the floor during the night and didn’t want his fallen angel turning around to get an eyeful. “It’s still only half past four. Go back to sleep.”

 

“I’d prefer to wake up now.” His skin was crawling with the sensation of Reggie’s unwashed hands gripping his throat. He would rather get up and do something productive in order to erase the image from his mind again.

 

“You had a rough day yesterday. You need to sleep,” Milton insisted. “How ‘bout I stay with you. Do you think you can sleep then?” That certainly wouldn’t be a hardship for him. He was already enjoying the feeling of stroking the Accountant’s back through that thin, semi-transparent, white shirt. And his fallen angel smelled real nice, fresh and clean from his shower, but mixed in with something exotic and indescribable.

 

The Accountant considered the offer for a moment before conceding that he actually would like that very much. “That would be very kind of you, John.” Again, his words were without any backtalk or foul language.

 

“Yeah, that’s me. Nothing but kindness,” Milton said with a guilty chuckle. He kept his head propped up on one elbow, having no pillow to lie on, and just continued to ease the Accountant back to sleep. When he heard the Accountant’s soft breathing even out, he stilled his hand. He pulled the sheets firmly around his hips and lay back to think about the connection he had with his fallen angel.

 

He supposed that his attraction had started way back when he’d first spotted the elusive creature back in the Fiery Pits. That was before he had been handed a reason to escape from Hell the first time. Before he had learnt of his daughter’s pregnancy and then her brutal murder at the hands of that perverted, satanic occultist Jonah King. Before all that, Milton had been resigned to his fate, loitering around the bars, trying to drink himself into a stupor. But Hell didn’t allow you to get drunk. It also didn’t allow you to hook up because the women were segregated from the men. And no, Hell didn’t discriminate when it came to your sexual orientation. Men who had a taste for other men were also kept apart from the general population, so the afterlife had been pretty dull and Milton’s attitude lackluster. So, when that finely dressed creature with his peculiar mannerisms and cheeky arrogance had entered the bar, Milton thought someone had thrown him a life preserver.

 

Milton usually considered himself to be a ladies’ man. Back when he’d still been alive, he had rarely gone to bed without first exhausting a random girl that he’d taken back to the room with him. Aside from scheming and murdering as a part of the gang he had been forced into, sex was the only other thing that occupied a large portion of his time. Sex with women. But that tall, slender creature with those near cerulean blue eyes and that halfway innocent smile did a number on Milton. Something that pretty had no business strolling around Hell, especially not into the seedy depths of the Fiery Pits. That was where the eternally damned hung out. The worst of the worst.

 

Milton had been on the verge of getting up to intercept the Accountant before anyone else noticed his presence when the creature showed his true colors. The man that the Accountant had been grabbing onto from the shadows of the door was suddenly flung halfway across the bar with inhuman strength. All without so much as a wrinkle to that fancy suit, or a carefully groomed hair out of place.

 

“If you should ever attempt to break out again, motherfucker, the next time you’ll be escorted back missing an arm or a leg,” the pretty creature had threatened, smiling smugly at the man who had ended up crashing into a table where some badass gangsters were playing chess.

 

Milton had watched the Accountant, stunned by his powers, and mesmerized by his good looks. And, underneath it all was the nagging feeling that whoever had taught the Accountant how to swear had screwed up royally.

 

He had never thought that he would one day be pitted against the Accountant, fighting for his right for vengeance on the man responsible for his daughter’s death. Or that he would end up fighting to protect his fallen angel after they’d resolved their differences. And he most definitely hadn’t anticipated them ending up in bed together. Not that he was complaining.

 

“John,” the Accountant murmured sleepily when the hand on his back stopped moving. “I can hear you thinking.”

 

Milton tensed up immediately. “Bullshit! You cannot!” Could he?

 

“No, I don’t have that ability. But I can hear you breathing heavily and it’s terribly distracting.” The Accountant switched sides so that he was now facing Milton, the sheets the only thing between them. He pressed in close, his cheek nuzzling Milton’s bare chest. “You smell good,” he said with a sigh.

 

Milton didn’t know what to say to that so he chose to remain silent, instead wrapping his arms around his fallen angel to hold him tenderly. He swallowed around the lump in his throat, knowing the level of trust it probably took for the Accountant to expose himself like that. He knew that he was way past the point of no return now. He wouldn’t let go of the Accountant even if Satan himself tried to get between them.


	4. Chapter 4

Sometime around 6:23 a.m., the Accountant found himself being pulled out of his comfortable slumber by a strong sense of uneasiness. He blinked back some residual sleepiness, tried to get up, and found that he couldn’t. Milton was holding him so tightly that the Accountant was losing the circulation in his left arm that was trapped between them. To the obvious eye, Milton may have appeared like a biker thug past his prime, with his hippy blonde hair – more of an orange near the roots thanks to a bad dye job – ungroomed beard, and outdated jean jacket. But the unassuming escapee from Hell was far more dangerous than he looked. The Accountant could barely move an inch due to the hard, muscular arms that were wrapped around his waist and back. Milton’s chest and abs were like solid steel as well, not bodybuilder defined, but powerful all the same. Either from his ill deeds on Earth, or from the time he had spent in Hell doing manual labor. That was one of the punishments for escaping. Sixty days straight of digging massive holes out in the desert with nothing but snarling, bony Dobermans keeping watch on you.

 

The Accountant breathed in Milton’s appealing scent, finding the unique mixture of musk and arousal comforting. At first, the Accountant had been ignorant of Milton’s sexual state, but as of last night he found himself being magnetically attracted to it.

 

Remembering his internal alarm, the Accountant cleared his thoughts and listened carefully, trying to identify what had woken him up. At first, all he heard was Milton’s soft snoring and the light splash of raindrops on the railing outside. But when he honed his extra sensitive hearing in on his immediate surroundings, the sound of another set of lungs exhaling air nearby caused him to freeze.

 

The Accountant made an effort to stay perfectly still, except for his right hand that he moved over Milton’s back, pushing underneath the man’s sweaty, immovable body, searching the space around him. When Milton suddenly snatched his wrist and looked at him questioningly with his grayish-blue eyes, woken up by similar reflexes, the Accountant whispered to him.

 

“Where is your gun?”

 

Milton didn’t ask why. He simply pushed his hand underneath the Accountant’s pillow and flicked off the safety of the hidden weapon before pulling back the hammer. Only then did he ask for more details. “How many? Where?” He hissed.

 

“One in the bathroom, four outside the front door, and one by the window.”

 

“You got a weapon?”

 

“No, but the coat rack will do.”

 

Milton narrowed his eyes at that idea. “There’s a knife in my boot if you can get to it. Make sure you steer clear of Reggie if he’s with them. That piece of trash is mine.”

 

The faint creak of a weight shifting across the floorboards caused Milton to fly out of bed, yanking his gun out from under the pillow with one hand and pushing the Accountant’s head down with the other. He fired five times in the direction of the noise, pausing when he heard the sound of a body dropping inside the bathroom.

 

When it felt safe to move, the Accountant glanced at Milton, about to ask him something, and stopped. At first he was confused when he realized that the man who had been sleeping beside him was buck-ass naked. That feeling was soon replaced by something resembling admiration as he unabashedly appraised Milton’s impressive physique, before curiously lowering his gaze to see how well endowed his companion was.

 

“Now’s not the time,” Milton warned, feeling himself begin to react to his fallen angel’s visual inspection. He swiped his longish hair behind his ears, clearing his vision, and clenched the gun harder.

 

Now that there was no longer a reason to be sneaking around quietly, the other five men crashed into the room. Four forcing in the rotting front door, and the fifth smashing his way in through the window. Before Milton could fire again, the Accountant was already out of bed and swinging the coat rack. Milton was on the verge of yelling at the Accountant for not going for the knife, until his fallen angel whacked the top of the coat rack over the TV set, breaking off the top hooks, and held his newly adjusted spear in both hands.

 

The Accountant aimed the makeshift spear at the man closest to him, whipping it up in a deadly arc that sliced off his opponent’s ear. He brought it back down again lightning quick, pulling it back, and then rammed it forward and through the man’s heart.

 

Milton surmised that this was probably the Accountant’s choice of weapons. His fallen angel didn’t like to get up close when he killed, so the spear kept his enemies at a distance and at a disadvantage.

 

“Blue eyes, behind you!” Milton shot at Reggie who had come in through the window, missing when the large man lunged to one side, putting him too close to the Accountant. He charged the man, mentally reminding himself that he had to protect his valuables, which were feeling a little too breezy thanks to the broken door and window letting in all the cold air.

 

Reggie looked far too healthy for Milton’s liking. His body was intact, his throat where it should be, and his one good eye sharp with bitterness. “I’m surprised the Accountant kept you around,” Reggie taunted. “Just seems like he’s digging around the bottom of the barrel. The pretentious failure of an angel giving it up to the loser has-been.”

 

Milton’s only response to that was to punch Reggie in the mouth as hard as he could, hopefully succeeding in knocking a few more of the bastard’s teeth loose. Although Milton was a more suitable opponent for Reggie than the Accountant, the one-eyed menace was still a good deal bigger and heavier than him. He would not go down easy.

 

Reggie took the blow in good spirits, giving it back to Milton twice as hard in the solar plexus. That would have been enough to drop any normal man, but Milton was not any normal man. Dead or alive, he had always had a very high threshold for pain.

 

The Accountant held off the remaining three men while Milton attacked Reggie. He heard gunshots and a grunt of pain, but couldn’t turn around to see what was happening. He thrust the spear through the second man, missing the heart when his enemy moved at the last second. Before he could pull back, the other man – a tall and skinny bastard – grabbed hold of the spear and yanked hard, pulling the Accountant forward and off balance. But the Accountant clung onto the spear with all his strength, refusing to let go. In Hell, the Accountant’s power was amplified, giving him the ability to manage the troublemakers, but on Earth he relied more on speed and accuracy to get the job done. He was agile enough to leap out of a moving car, and had the resolve to impale human flesh with projectiles, but he had zero experience in hand-to-hand combat. Usually the escapees from Hell he was charged with pursuing didn’t give him this much trouble. They also weren’t this well organized and tended to go at it solo, instead of banding together like a lawless gang. Given the fact that these were dead men he was fighting, the Accountant usually would have chosen to take on one at a time. Two was pushing it. But three, he couldn’t handle.

 

Off in the far corner of the room, Reggie and Milton were beating the crap out of each other. Reggie had plowed into Milton, knocking the gun out of his grasp and tossing him halfway across the room to crash into the TV set. “You’re no better than me, Milton,” Reggie taunted. “You want a piece of that just as much as I do.” He nodded to Milton’s state of undress, and then leered in the Accountant’s direction.

 

“He’s not a thing to be used,” Milton snarled, brushing splintered wood and broken glass off of his leg. “You keep your motherfucking filthy hands off of him!” He blocked his crotch from Reggie’s kick and got back on his feet, slashing the one-eyed monster with the knife that he’d pulled from his boot. He managed to tear open a strip of flesh on Reggie’s belly, causing him to bleed through his shirt. Although he was also quite skilled at kicking, he wasn’t stupid enough to try it while his genitals were exposed. Before he could stab Reggie again, the man that he had thought he’d killed in the bathroom attacked him from behind. Milton fended him off with the knife, whirling around when he noticed Reggie slip away. “Stay away from him!”

 

It looked like that had been Reggie’s plan all along, to get himself alone with the Accountant. The three men that the Accountant had been fending off moved away to gang up on Milton, leaving Reggie to his prey.

 

The Accountant backed away from Reggie, not taking his eyes off of him as he held his spear at the ready.

 

“Look at you, all badass with your little weapon,” Reggie taunted. “It didn’t work for you the first time, and it won’t--.” He swore when the Accountant whipped the spear violently at his face, ripping open a line from his dead eye all the way up to his forehead. Wiping the blood out of his good eye, Reggie began to circle around the Accountant, looking for an opening. “Where’re your pants?” He licked his lips at the sight of the fallen angel in nothing but an oversized shirt. “Did Milton get them off of you? Is that why you were in bed with him?”

 

“That’s exactly why I was in bed with him,” the Accountant lied, his voice cold and hard. “So, you can take your unwanted sexual innuendo and shove it up your ass. I’m with Milton now.”

 

Reggie grinned at the Accountant in amusement. “You’re a pretty good liar, but not good enough. You think I would believe that Milton would help himself after acting all chivalrous to you? Don’t bullshit me!” Reggie caught the spear between his palms when the Accountant tried to puncture his chest with it. He gripped it hard and pulled, dragging the Accountant forward and across the carpet. Although the Accountant dug his bare heels into the carpet, he lost to Reggie’s superior strength. Reggie tore the spear out of the Accountant’s grasp, swinging it back to nearly hit the fallen angel in the face. The Accountant gracefully avoided being hit, but was too distracted to notice the man who snuck up on him from behind.

 

Milton was finished bludgeoning the tall, skinny member of Reggie’s crew and was splitting his attacks between the old geezer that had come in through the bathroom window and another man who looked more hairball than human. But in the process, he allowed the third man to escape, turning just in time to see him grab the Accountant by both arms and hold him still for Reggie.

 

The Accountant struggled, recoiling in fear and disgust when Reggie approached him with an unkind look on his face. Reggie was significantly bigger than the Accountant, using his bulk to intimidate the slender creature.   “Where’s your arrogance now?” He gripped the Accountant cruelly by his jaw, forcing him to maintain eye contact. “Do you think I won’t damage your pretty face? Keep screwing with me and see what happens!” When it looked like the Accountant was going to say something rebellious and offensive, Reggie’s fingers dug in hard enough to bruise. “Go ahead. Piss me off more,” he dared, his crazed eyes and warped smile a mere centimeter from the Accountant’s face. The fingers of Reggie’s other hand traced the Accountant’s finely sculpted eyebrow, grazed the long eyelashes of his left eye, and lingered on the scar marring his left cheek. He sneered when his prey jerked back and began to look more than just a little scared. “That’s more like it,” he praised, dragging the backs of his fingernails over the scar with a bit more pressure. He grinned menacingly when the Accountant strained against the hands crushing his forearms and made a sound halfway between pain and fear.

 

Milton sliced through the geezer’s throat and picked up his gun, aiming it at the hairball. He blasted him through the chest several times before taking aim at Reggie’s head. “Get the fuck away from him!” But before he could get off a shot, Reggie had wrapped his hands around the Accountant’s throat and was starting to choke him. Milton fired multiple times, catching the man who was restraining the Accountant in the shoulder and then the head, and Reggie in the temple, neck, and ribcage. Just as Reggie was releasing the Accountant, he suddenly pulled at something around the gasping creature’s neck.

 

The Accountant cried out in pain as the black, leather collar Reggie had secured around his neck was yanked tightly by the leash it was attached to. Even as Milton continued to spray Reggie full of bullets, the one-eyed menace continued to viciously tug on the leash, dragging the Accountant down with him.

 

Reggie glared hatefully at the Accountant as the life began to flow out of him. He savagely yanked on the leash one more time, causing the terrified creature to fall on top of his bullet-riddled body, harshly choking. Before the last bit of life left him, he gripped the Accountant by his hair and laughed at him. His fetid breath was unbearable, especially at such close range. “You’ll be mine soon enough. There ain’t nothing Milton can do to stop me. And by the time I’m done with you, he won’t want you back.” To prove his point, he ground his hard erection against the Accountant’s bare thigh, not letting up on the leash.

 

A furious Milton stomped on Reggie’s left arm, breaking it and freeing the Accountant’s messy brown hair. He then kicked Reggie’s face several times to make sure he was dead – or at least temporarily – cracking his jaw in several places. Then he reached down to break all of Reggie’s fingers, pulling the leash out of his lifeless grasp. “What the fuck is this?!” Fuck that psychopath and his kink for asphyxiation! Milton pulled the Accountant off of Reggie and held him tightly. “Blue eyes, are you okay?” But the Accountant was not okay. He was far from being even relatively close to okay. He still continued to cough and gasp, his eyes filling with tears. His white shirt was covered in Reggie’s blood and had ridden up embarrassingly high in the scuffle. “Let me get this piece of shit off of you.” Milton unclipped the leash and tried to slide his fingers under the collar. But it was on so tight there wasn’t enough leeway for him to get his fingers in there. “Son-of-a-bitch! How does this thing come off?!” He couldn’t just cut straight through it. Not with a knife so big. He’d end up cutting his fallen angel along with it. He felt around it for a clip or a clasp, or a seam… anything, but could find nothing that would detach it from the Accountant’s neck. “Can you help me, blue eyes?” Milton asked gently. “Your fingers are slimmer than mine. Can you pull it away from your neck?”

 

The Accountant did as he was asked, still breathing hard and now beginning to tremble uncontrollably. He was barely able to get two fingers between the collar and his neck, and even then the tension prevented him from swallowing.

 

“Hold still.” Milton very carefully moved the knife in close, until the tip was barely touching the collar. He applied a bit of pressure to the knife and glided it slowly downwards and then back up again, going at it with a sawing motion. He kept at it for a few minutes but it was obvious that he wasn’t making any progress. After another minute, the Accountant pushed Milton’s hand away and pulled his fingers out to swallow uncomfortably.

 

“We’ll get it off somehow. I’ll call the fire department if I have to.” When the Accountant said absolutely nothing to that, staring down at Reggie’s ghastly corpse and hugging himself as if cold, Milton realized that something was seriously wrong. He tried pulling the blanket off of the bed to wrap his fallen angel in it, but the shivering did not stop. “Did he injure your throat? Is that it?” Milton asked worriedly. He sat on the floor behind the Accountant and gently embraced him. “Please tell me what’s wrong, blue eyes. I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

 

“I feel nothing,” the Accountant said simply, his voice weak from the abuse he’d endured.

 

“What do you mean you feel nothing?”

 

“The collar is laced with satanic magic.” The Accountant emotionally rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes and struggled to calm his breathing. “All of my powers… my extra senses… they’re gone.”

 

The implications of what the Accountant had just said made whatever Milton was about to say to comfort him utterly useless. Although he had never been entirely clear on what the Accountant’s capabilities actually were, he had no doubt that taking them away would be like blinding a normal human. And if his fallen angel no longer had any of his powers or his ability to sense death and danger, did that mean he could be killed?

 

“We have to leave. Now!” Milton’s sense of urgency increased when a single tear trickled down the Accountant’s cheek, followed by another. Milton no longer had to wonder if his fallen angel was capable of experiencing the full range of emotions because it looked like he was exhibiting signs of several of them at the same time. Fear. Despair. Loss. Hurt. But as much as Milton wanted to sit there and console him, he knew that he couldn’t afford to waste time doing so. If he wanted to protect what was his, he had to get the Accountant as far away as possible, immediately. “Come on, get dressed!” Milton hauled the Accountant to his feet and pushed him down onto the bed. He picked up the neatly folded pile of the Accountant’s distinguished new outfit and dumped it next to him. After a quick glance at the Accountant’s neck, Milton decided that he could probably do with something to drink. So, he raided the mini-bar, coming back with a bottle of cold water. “Drink this.” He stroked the Accountant’s hair to coax him into doing so when his fallen angel didn’t respond. Eventually, the Accountant took a sip of the water, having difficulty swallowing it. After another sip, he tried to pass the bottle back to Milton. “Drink more.”

 

Milton left the Accountant with the water and hoped that he wouldn’t need to be told twice to get dressed. They hadn’t come in with much, so Milton didn’t need to pack much away. But he did take all the drinks out of the mini-bar, stuffing them into the pillowcase he pulled off of the pillow. They wouldn’t be stopping for hours and the Accountant would need to keep his throat lubricated to avoid further damage. Milton couldn’t risk Reggie and his gang catching up again. Not when his fallen angel was like this. He would have loved to set Reggie and those other motherfuckers on fire. Nothing was stopping him really, except for the fact that he knew it was a waste of time. They would come back no matter what he did to them.

 

After Milton had retrieved his semi-dried clothing from the bathroom and put on everything that was reasonably dry, which didn’t include the jean jacket or his socks, he checked to see how the Accountant was doing. His fallen angel had his suit back on and the extra pile of clothing ready to go, but he was not wearing his tie. The first few buttons of his dressed shirt were open, revealing the black leather collar and the dark bruises around his neck. He would not look up when Milton approached. As Milton got closer he could see that the Accountant had his lucky coin in his right hand and was turning it over again and again in his palm. But nothing was happening.

 

“Let’s go,” Milton said gently, pulling the Accountant close to him with one arm and pressing a kiss to his damp cheek. When his fallen angel stopped moving and the trembled got worse again, Milton followed his line of sight to see what he was staring at. Milton didn’t know how he could have missed it. He had been so intent on getting that blasted collar off that he hadn’t noticed the bulge in Reggie’s pants or the way he had been grinding against the Accountant. Milton gritted his teeth and glared at Reggie’s bloody corpse in hatred. He pulled the knife out of his boot again and strode over to the lifeless mess, barely able to contain his fury. It took a very strong stomach to do what he did next, unzipping the gangster’s pants to pull his still hard member free. “Is this what you’re afraid of?” Milton looked back at the Accountant, watching those keen blue eyes widen in fear, confirming his suspicions. “The dead can’t be killed, but they can be fucked up pretty bad. Maybe we should see if Hell can fix this.” With one hefty stroke of the blade, Milton had removed the threat against the Accountant. He tossed it onto the floor beside Reggie’s face and casually got up to scrub the skin off of his contaminated hands in the bathroom.

 

When Milton returned with his hands rubbed raw, he checked to see if Reggie’s castration had improved the Accountant’s disposition any. He was disappointed and concerned to find his fallen angel in the same spot on the bed, still trembling, his eyes shiny with tears.

 


	5. Chapter 5

The Accountant offered no conversation on the way to the parking lot. The asphalt was full of puddles from the morning shower and the brisk air gave Milton goose bumps. Inside the car, the atmosphere was just as uncomfortable, with Milton having no idea what to say. He started the engine and flicked on the heater to ward off the chill. It was still in that unpredictable period between spring and summer, when the mornings and nights held onto the lower temperatures. The rain only dropped the temperature lower. Milton draped the blanket that he’d stolen from the hotel over the Accountant’s shoulders, hoping the warmth would ease his discomfort.

 

Just as Milton was about to back out of the spot, he looked over at the Accountant again and noticed that he didn’t have his seatbelt on. Come to think of it, Milton couldn’t recall him buckling up yesterday either. Well, there was a really good fucking reason for him to do so now! Seeing as how the Accountant was having a difficult time focusing, Milton stretched over to fasten the seatbelt for him.

 

“I’ll find a way to make this right, blue eyes,” Milton swore. “I promise you that.”

 

The Accountant slowly raised his head to look at Milton and smiled sorrowfully, his eyes wavering with emotion. “I know you will, John.” His voice was still hoarse and his throat hurt, so he left it at that. There was nothing he wanted to say. They had passed by an elderly couple on the way to the car and the Accountant had reflexively given them a wide berth, greatly disturbed that he wasn’t able to sense their auras. They could be mass murderers for all he knew, walking canes or not. He felt unbalanced, suffering from sensory deprivation and unable to do anything about it.

 

Milton steered the black convertible through the back roads, slowly cruising up and down residential streets.

 

“John…?” The Accountant glanced at the speedometer nervously and turned to look out the window as Milton drove back down the same street twice.

 

Without explaining himself, Milton stopped the car and reached into the back to start pulling out their supplies. He shoved the bundle onto the Accountant’s lap and undid his seatbelt. “Get ready to switch cars.” As much as he hated to abandon such a beautiful piece of machinery, he knew that Reggie and his gang would have no problem identifying the only sports car that had been in the hotel parking lot.

 

All the Accountant could do was watch as Milton proved he was a real crazy fool with the balls for anything. Milton walked right up the driveway of a very large estate, acting as if he owned the place, his goal undeniably being the 1966 silver Charger with the black racing stripes. It took seconds for Milton to boost the vehicle, easing it back down the driveway as quietly as possible.

 

“Get in,” Milton ordered as he pulled up alongside the black Impala.

 

The Accountant obeyed, climbing into the new car that smelled like tobacco smoke and imported cigars. After the Accountant had fastened his seatbelt, Milton cautiously drove to the end of the street before picking up speed. By the time he was back on the rural highway, he was clocking 135 km/h.

 

“You okay?” Milton asked, opening the window a crack to let some fresh air in.

 

“I haven’t died from smoke inhalation yet,” the Accountant replied sarcastically.

 

That got Milton smiling, relieved that his fallen angel still had a bit of fight left in him. “You know, I’ve never really asked you about your powers.” When he received no answer, he realized that he had misjudged the Accountant’s mental state. His fallen angel was operating on autopilot, choosing to reply with sarcasm because it didn’t require him to think. Inquiring about his powers was a more sensitive topic than the effects of thirdhand smoke. After a few minutes of being ignored, Milton got concerned and reached over to stroke his fallen angel’s hand. “We’re still okay, right?”

 

The Accountant reacted to the uncertainty in Milton’s voice, moving as close to what he considered to be his valiant knight as the seatbelt would allow. He rubbed his smooth cheek against Milton’s coarse one, heedless of the fact that the man was driving at a deadly velocity, and then rested his head on Milton’s shoulder. “This is the only thing that is okay,” he sighed, closing his eyes as Milton’s familiar scent began to calm his racing heart.

 

Instead of telling his fallen angel off, or crashing the car, Milton pulled him closer and drove with one hand on the steering wheel. “I need to know what was taken from you, blue eyes.”

 

“It’s complicated.”

 

“Dumb it down so I can understand,” Milton said in exasperation.

 

“I can no longer sense whether a person is good or evil, dead or alive. I never considered it to be a power because it was something that just happened. You open your eyes and you see. A psychopath with a bedroom full of body parts approaches me and I just feel the evil in him. I know what crime he has committed.” The Accountant reached for the water bottle when his throat began to hurt again. “It was like every man or woman destined for Hell had an expiration date stamped on their forehead – an expiration date that only I could see. It made them easy to weed out.”

 

“What about judging a person by their appearance or body language?”

 

“I don’t have the experience to do that.”

 

“And your supernatural strength?” Milton asked.

 

The Accountant sighed miserably. “I don’t have supernatural strength. It’s a form of dark telekinesis, and I have difficulty using it when I’m… emotionally compromised. It only enhances my speed and agility, and whatever weapon I am physically holding. I can’t actually move objects I am not in direct contact with.”

 

That would explain how Reggie and his goon had been able to overpower the Accountant. Milton had always assumed that his fallen angel was extremely strong for his build, unnaturally so, but he had never once imagined that it was a power of the mind. “And the coin tricks?”

 

“Same power.”

 

“What about that charm power you mentioned earlier? Is that affected?”

 

“That isn’t a gift Satan bestowed upon me. That’s something that was just always… there.”

 

“Can you use it as a defense? In case we run into Reggie’s men again?” Again, the Accountant didn’t answer, indicating that Milton was way off base with his assumptions. “So, that’s a no?”

  
“It doesn’t work on evil,” the Accountant finally replied. “And even if it did, I wouldn’t want to get close enough to those animals to try using it. I don’t want them touching me again.”

 

Milton cursed himself for even suggesting it when he heard how emotional the Accountant got over it. Of course his fallen angel wouldn’t want to lure Reggie and his men any closer, especially not after what had happened today. “I thought you could handle yourself,” Milton said in a constricted voice, tightening his hold on his fallen angel. “I never suspected you were using telekinesis and not your own strength. If I’d known…I would’ve kept you behind me and out of Reggie’s reach.”

 

“Can we not discuss this further?” The Accountant began to feel drowsy from the movement of the car and the stress from his encounter with Reggie, along with his sensitive emotional state. He didn’t want to think anymore. All he wanted to do was sleep.

 

“Okay.” Milton felt the Accountant shift against him, trying to find a soft spot on his shoulder to rest his head on. He wasn’t likely to find one. It was already dangerous enough having the front seat passenger clinging to him like that, and he with only one hand on the wheel. As much as he wanted to keep his fallen angel close, he didn’t want him to get fatally injured in a car accident. “Blue eyes, you’re gonna need to get back in your own seat,” he said regretfully. “If it’s that easy to bruise you,” he gently ran his fingers along the Accountant’s collar, touching the injuries there, “it might be just as easy to kill you.”

 

That possibility upset the Accountant. He hadn’t thought of his immortality being affected by the torture device Reggie had strapped to him. Even with his powers he could still be hurt and possibly killed, if his enemy knew what to use and what to aim for. Not wanting to risk finding out what would happen if he did cause a car accident, the Accountant settled back in his own seat and drifted off to sleep.

 

* * *

 

By the time the Accountant woke again, Milton was pushing past three hours on the highway. The sun was now high in the sky and it was hot and stuffy in the car. The Accountant pushed off the blanket, rolled it up, and tossed it onto the backseat.

 

“You’re awake,” Milton said, sounding relieved.

 

The Accountant watched fields of cows, crops, and farmhouses speeding by the window and became agitated. “John, I have urgent need of a restroom,” he said matter-of-factly.

 

“Yeah, you and me both. Can you hold it for another five minutes? There’s a rest stop with a burger joint coming up in another few kilometers.”

 

“You can keep the burgers,” the Accountant warned, letting Milton know that he was expecting something a little higher class for breakfast.

 

Not more than ten minutes later, Milton was barely halfway into the parking lot before the Accountant was opening the door and stepping out of a still-moving car. Obviously, someone had forgotten that they no longer had the ability to glide on air. Swearing at his fallen angel’s impulsiveness, Milton braked, and waited until the Accountant was clear of the car before pulling into a parking spot and turning off the engine. He had just enough time to disconnect the battery wires from the ignition wires, replacing the plastic cover on the steering column, when the passenger’s side door was yanked open again and he was faced with his unnerved companion.

 

“What?” Milton asked reflexively.

 

“I’m not going in there by myself. The men were staring at me.”

 

That didn’t sound so hard to believe. An attractive man wearing an exorbitantly priced suit walks into a pit stop frequented by hillbillies, truckers, and junkies, and gets stared at? Sounded completely normal to Milton. On second thought…

 

“Did you look at them first?”

 

“What kind of ridiculous question is that? Of course I looked at them first. I needed to make sure they weren’t going to look at me.”

 

Milton didn’t waste his time explaining to his fallen angel that what he’d just said made absolutely no sense.

 

“Okay, I really need to take a piss, so why don’t we just go in together and do what we came here to do?” Milton walked around back to the men’s restroom, pushing open the door and holding it for the Accountant. As soon as they were inside, Milton got a feel for the atmosphere that his fallen angel had been referring to. There were four men inside, and all of them had their eyes on the Accountant. But for different reasons.

 

The youngest punks – two local kids in their teens – were whispering to each other and snickering, making an ass out of the Accountant’s _gay_ cufflinks and prissy hairstyle. One of the older men in front of the urinals was eyeing the Accountant’s pockets, preparing to jump him for his wallet as soon as he had his back turned. And the last man had his eyes on the collar around the Accountant’s neck, itching for some kinky action in the stall that the fallen angel quickly locked himself in.

 

Holding his bladder past the point of severe irritation, Milton took care of the pervert first. “The pretty thing in the suit belongs to me, so if you so much as go anywhere near that door, I’ll shoot your balls off.” To prove that he wasn’t bluffing, he took out his gun and kept his eyes on the pervert who was far too close to the stall that his fallen angel was in. Keeping the gun pointed at the pervert, Milton finished off his business one-handedly in front of the urinal.

 

The pervert kept away from the door but followed the Accountant over to the sink when he came out, watching him wash his hands. “John,” the Accountant called out nervously. “Can you please get this rapist away from me?”

 

Everyone turned to gape at the Accountant, including the pervert who looked seriously offended. “What the fuck, bitch?! Where do you get off at callin’ me a rapist? You came in here wearing that _thing_ around your neck and playin’ all hard to get. You’re just askin’ for trouble. Sugar daddy or no sugar daddy.”

 

Before the pervert could strike the Accountant, Milton had cuffed him on the back of the head, knocking him out cold. “That’s no rapist, blue eyes. Just a man with some serious sexual issues.” He passed the gun to the Accountant so he could take the time to wash his hands. When he noticed the pickpocket edging closer, he gave him a dirty look. “He doesn’t know how to use a gun, so I’d keep my distance if I were you. Might just blow your head off by mistake.”

 

In the blink of an eye, the restroom emptied out, except for the body out cold on the floor.

 

“How’s your throat?” Milton asked, leaning over the sink to rinse the aftertaste of one too many energy drinks out of his mouth.

 

“It still hurts.” The Accountant twirled the gun in his fingers, pushing his other hand into Milton’s front right pocket. “How much money do you have left?”

 

“Jesus Christ! Watch what you’re doing with that thing! The safety’s off!” Milton snatched the gun back from the Accountant and flipped the safety back on. “And keep your hands out of my pockets. Unless you want me to have a serious hard-on for the rest of the day.” When it looked like the Accountant might actually start crying, Milton cursed himself and pulled his fallen angel into a comforting embrace. “I’m sorry, blue eyes. I’m not angry. You just need to be more careful is all. You can’t go around calling people rapists or accusing them of stuff without any proof. You’re going to get hit or something worse if you keep that up. And a gun is not a toy, so try treating it with a little respect. It only takes one bullet to kill a man.”

 

“He looked like a rapist,” the Accountant insisted, pressing closer to Milton in need of his warmth.

 

“Blue eyes, please tell me you’re listening to what I’m saying and at least fifty percent is getting through,” Milton pleaded.

 

“I understand perfectly well, John. But how am I going to know when I encounter an actual rapist? Or a murderer? Or a psychopath? Do they have recognizable speech patterns? Do they dress oddly? What am I supposed to look for?” The Accountant’s voice escalated as his frustration and fear began to take over.

 

“It’s never that easy to pick out the nut jobs from the regular folk. Just stay close to me. I’ll protect you.” Milton smoothed the Accountant’s hair into place and kissed him affectionately on the lips. “Why don’t I treat you to a really nice lunch. Will that make you feel better?”

 

“Really?” The Accountant perked up a little, following Milton out of the restroom and accidentally stepping on the backs of the man’s boots when he got too close. “Something better than fast food?”

 

“Yeah, something better than fast food,” Milton agreed, sounding amused. “But first, I’m gonna find a drugstore. You need something to put on your neck.”

 

* * *

 

Another couple of kilometers down the road, Milton found a really old drugstore that looked like nothing but a pile of sawdust from the outside. The parking lot was empty and the store windows were so filthy that he couldn’t even tell if the place was open for business or not.

 

Milton parked the car in the closest spot to the entrance and turned to the Accountant. “Can you wait here for a couple of minutes?”

 

“I want to come in, too.”

 

“I don’t think so. I don’t want you messing around with drugs while my back is turned.” Milton waited until the Accountant settled back in his seat before continuing with the lecture. “You know the rules, right?”

 

The Accountant gave Milton a condescending look of boredom before reciting what the man had drilled into his head. “Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t open the door to strangers. Make sure the car doors are locked when you aren’t inside the car while the battery wires are still wrapped together with the ignition wires. Don’t let any law enforcement individuals see the hotwired state of the car.”

 

Milton paused with his hand on the door handle. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

 

“Don’t touch your gun.”

 

“Perfect! Now just hang tight for a few minutes.”

 

“John?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“What if a police officer knocks on the window and asks me to open the door?” The Accountant twisted off the cap of the sports drink that Milton had given him, tentatively sipped at it, and made a face. “This is really foul.”

 

“For crying out loud! Just go back to rule number two. Don’t open the door to strangers. Period. Why would a cop knock on the window in the first place?!”

 

“This is a stolen vehicle. What other reason do they need?”

 

Giving the Accountant a very stern look that meant the conversation was over, Milton pushed open the door and glared back at his fallen angel. “Five minutes. Do not open the door.”

 

The Accountant watched Milton go up to the front door of the drugstore, pull it open, wipe his grimy hand off on his pants afterwards, and disappear inside the filthy building. Five minutes. What was he going to do without Milton for five minutes?

 

Rolling down the window, the Accountant proceeded to empty the contents of the sports drink onto the pavement outside. After he was finished doing that, he quickly rolled the window back up, realizing that he had just broken rule number… He couldn’t remember what rule number _don’t open the window_ fell under.

 

Thirty seconds passed before the Accountant was rifling through the contents of the glove compartment. He flipped through gas receipts, phone bills, and the ownership papers for the car, dropping them all onto the floor when they failed to interest him. Next, he fiddled with the buttons on the dashboard, trying to figure out which button turned on the radio. When he accidentally turned on the heat instead, he had to roll down the window again as he retraced his steps, trying to remember which button had activated it in the first place.

 

Out of the corner of his eye, the Accountant noticed the handle of Milton’s gun, sticking up between the driver’s seat and the gearshift. He promptly ignored it, not wanting to make the trigger-happy convict angry with him again.

 

Finally, the Accountant got the heat to turn off and found the knob for the radio. When the punishing boom of heavy metal began to pour through the speakers and the subwoofer at the back of the car, the Accountant shrank back into his seat, having gotten quite a fright. He allowed the car to rock to the rhythm of angst-ridden lyrics chanting of death, Satan, and retribution, not really understanding what all the screaming was about. He turned the knob again, silencing the noise, and twisted around to see what was in the backseat.

 

The driver’s side door pulled open at that moment, causing the Accountant to quickly turn back around. He stared at the unfamiliar man who was holding open the driver’s side door in terror.

 

“You need some help there?” The uniformed policeman asked, grinning amiably at the Accountant. He was a man in his mid-thirties, dark haired with green eyes, and looked like he could bench press the Accountant with one hand.

 

“Um…” Milton was going to kill him.

 

“Sorry, it just looked like you didn’t know what you were doing,” the policeman said with a laugh. “My boyfriend drives some fancy sports cars, too, so I know what it’s like. Not knowing which button is for the radio and which is for the sunroof.”

 

Very carefully, the Accountant faked a genteel smile at the policeman, and kept his eyes from wandering to the concealed weapon in the front seat. “Yes… that is embarrassing,” he agreed. “My _boyfriend_ ,” he tried to copy the policeman’s casual infliction but ended up overemphasizing and making it sound like a threat. “He apparently likes to listen to psycho crap at deafening volumes.”

 

Much to the Accountant’s horror, the policeman leaned into the car and began to mess with the dials on the radio. “You been dating long?”

 

“Is two days long?”

 

The policeman looked taken aback for a moment, but ended up chuckling when the Accountant blushed. “Depends on what your average dating period looks like.” After a few more adjustments, the policeman had turned on the air conditioning to a low setting and found a relaxing pop music station for the Accountant to listen to. “There you go! All fixed.”

 

“Thank you very much,” the Accountant said sincerely.

 

“Don’t mention it! It’s my pleasure to assist someone as good looking as yourself.” And then he ran his hand down the Accountant’s arm, still smiling, before he removed himself from the inside of the car. “You have a nice day now.”

 

“You, too.” The Accountant kept the phony smile plastered on his face until the policeman was out of visual range and then began to brush off his sleeve. Sometimes his charm powers were a curse.

 

The door opened again and the Accountant jumped back, startled, only to find Milton standing there with a paper bag in his hand. “I thought I told you to lock the door,” he said with a tired sigh.

 

“I saw you coming and I unlocked it,” the Accountant smoothly lied.

 

“Sure you did. Do yourself a favor and don’t get into the habit of lying. You suck at it.” Milton got in, closed the door and locked it. He then pulled a tube of ointment and a fresh water bottle out of the paper bag. “Did anything happen while I was gone?”

 

“What could possibly happen in five minutes, John?” The Accountant nervously kicked the papers that he’d dropped onto the floor of the car under his seat.

 

“I don’t know. You tell me,” Milton replied absently, not really giving it much thought. He passed the Accountant the water bottle and broke the seal on the ointment. “The pharmacist says this is good for cuts, burns, rashes, and broken skin. It should help you feel better. Now hold still.” He gently rubbed the ointment into the bruises on the Accountant’s neck, the medicine instantly soothing his irritated skin. He smiled when his fallen angel nuzzled his neck and moved in for a kiss in order to express his gratitude. Milton kissed him and sighed. “You’re welcome.”

 

Milton didn’t notice that the radio was on until he’d pulled out of the parking spot. The air conditioning was on, too. Well, that was good. At least he hadn’t needed to teach the Accountant how to operate the accessories in the car. He drove back onto the highway, in search of a nice establishment that he could treat his fallen angel to. He was so busy checking out billboards and roadway signs that he failed to notice how his fallen angel was leaning back against the headrest and quietly thanking God for something.


	6. Chapter 6

“Bistro L’amour,” Milton read out loud as he pulled into the parking lot of a classy looking restaurant that was surrounded by a miniature Zen garden, the terrace dining area overlooking a romantically lit pond full of orange and multicolored carp. It was still fairly early in the afternoon, but the expertly trimmed bonsai trees and bushes enshrouded the eating area to give it the illusion of privacy, and to justify the use of so many lights during the day.   Milton could still see through a gap in the bushes, catching one of the waiters scratching his crotch as he put down the cutlery. “Just because it costs a fortune doesn’t mean they keep their hands off of their privates,” he muttered to himself.

 

“John, what does L’amour mean?”

 

“Beats the hell out of me. I don’t speak Italian. It’s probably the name of some kind of animal.” The restaurant had a tiny open-for-business sign peeking out of the glass window near the entrance, but no menu in sight. No menu meant no price list. No price list meant that they could charge whatever the fuck they wanted and get away with it. Milton usually wouldn’t give this type of snobby establishment the time of day, but the Accountant needed something to lift his spirits up and some ass-kissing in a five-star restaurant was just what the doctor ordered. Besides, a little wine and a glass or two of champagne might loosen his fallen angel up a bit. Make him more pliable in the bedroom. Although he had the morals and decency to keep his pants on until the Accountant warmed up to the idea, he thought that it was about time to move onto the next level. And that included a mildly inebriated fallen angel, the backseat of the car, and lots of fondling.

 

“Are we going to go inside or just sit here until you take care of _that_?” The Accountant asked in annoyance, gesturing to the protrusion in Milton’s jeans.

 

“Shit! Just turn around for a few minutes. It’ll go away on its own.”

 

The Accountant looked doubtful about that but turned away anyway. “Why do I have to turn around? I didn’t do anything to cause it.”

 

“Okay, first of all, stop saying _it_. _It’s_ an _erection_. And yes, you did cause it. Indirectly anyhow. Take it as a compliment and don’t bring it up again until we’re done with dinner.”

 

“Whatever you say, John.”

 

“And before we go inside, we have to do something about this piece of crap around your neck.” Milton leaned over, took hold of the Accountant’s shirt collar, and pulled it closed. He knew that it couldn’t be buttoned up for fear of choking his fallen angel, so he retrieved the magenta silk tie from the backseat, and began to loosely knot it as close to the collar as he could. It looked really sloppy because of the open buttons and Milton’s poor excuse for a tying job, but it served its purpose. No one would notice the black strip of cursed material strapped to the Accountant’s neck unless they pulled the knot of the tie down. And the only person who would be doing that was Milton himself. Much later in the night, of course.

 

“Don’t quit your day job,” the Accountant said with a cocky smirk when he looked down to see how Milton had butchered his tie.

 

“Just get out and don’t say anything inside that will get us arrested.” Milton tossed his shades onto the dashboard and concealed the exposed wires under the steering column.

 

They both got out of the car, being approached by one of the waiters who had been lurking outside in front of the carp pond. He flicked his half smoked cigarette into the pond, much to the Accountant’s wide-eyed shock, and greeted them in a foreign tongue.

 

“Bonjour. Comment allez-vous?” He said, smiling coolly at them.

 

The Accountant elbowed Milton and lowered his voice to a mock whisper. “I think he asked you how your erection was.”

 

Milton felt his face crack a little as he struggled to smile as if he hadn’t heard what his companion had just said. “Table for two. Non-smoking,” he said as politely as he was capable of.

 

“Avez-vous une reservation?”

 

“Look, pal, I don’t speak Italian. Table for two. Cigarettes – no.”

 

“Avez-vous une chemise?”

 

“What the fuck?”

 

The Accountant followed the waiter’s stern gaze and tried to contain the sudden urge to burst into uncontrollable laughter. “I don’t think he likes your t-shirt.”

 

Not having the patience to put up with the Italian lesson, Milton pulled out the wad of bills from his pocket and waved them in front of the young man’s nose. “Look, I want to fucking eat something that I can’t get at McDonald’s or Burger King, and I want it served on fancy plates. Do you think you can do that for me?”

 

“Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir.”

 

“Oh, now you speak English.”

 

“Yes, sir. And I was speaking French before, not Italian.”

 

“I flunked English in high school, so I guarantee you I don’t give a rat’s ass about either language.” He grabbed the Accountant’s arm and tugged him in the direction of the entrance as soon as the waiter motioned for them to follow him. But… the Accountant would not move. “Hey, what’s the hold up?”

 

“John…,” the Accountant sounded strangely melancholic and distant, causing Milton to turn to him. “I would rather eat over there.” He pointed across the street at a high-traffic parking lot designated to a reddish square building that was buzzing with activity. Customers were going in and out of it so frequently that they really should have had revolving doors.

 

“Blue eyes, that’s a McDonald’s. You don’t want to eat there,” Milton assured him, watching a slightly overweight waitress standing out in the parking lot, holding a massive paper bag in front of a pickup truck driver’s side window. Within seconds, the bag was snatched up, disappearing inside the vehicle. Money exchanged hands, and the waitress dragged herself back inside the fast food joint.

 

“That isn’t a McDonald’s,” the waiter snickered. “That’s Shaky Shack. It’s so terrible it makes McDonald’s look high class.”

 

“Take me to Shaky Shack, John.”

 

“Look, blue eyes, you’re obviously confused. You said you wanted a good meal so I’m gonna treat you to a good meal. Over there is your food poisoning.”

 

“Does this restaurant have apple pie?” The Accountant challenged moodily.

 

Milton shrugged and turned to the waiter. “Do you have apple pie?”

 

“Most definitely not, sir. We have poached fruits smothered in a rich homemade caramel sauce, topped with whipped cream and a sprig of mint.”

 

Milton turned back to the Accountant. “They have something like apple pie,” he lied, misinterpreting what the waiter had just said.

 

“I don’t want _something like apple pie_. I want apple pie.”

 

When the Accountant grabbed Milton by his shirt and pressed up against his chest, rubbing his cheek there, Milton just about lost it in a public place. He wrapped his arms around his fallen angel and kissed him right in front of the waiter. “Sorry, but I think we’re having apple pie tonight.”

 

“I hope you brought some Imodium with you,” the waiter chuckled, leaving the two mismatched, lost customers to their horny lust over apple pie.

  

* * *

 

 

Shaky Shack was even worse than Milton had expected. Thankfully most of the customers were ordering takeout, so it wasn’t like there was a shortage of tables, but the service was appalling. They’d been standing inside the entrance for fifteen minutes and had been ignored by every gum-chewing, cleavage-popping waitress that seemed to work in the place. And Milton had been mystified upon glancing at the menu to see that they didn’t actually sell apple pie. They had a cherry pie and a blueberry pie, but no apple pie. Where in blazes had the Accountant gotten the idea that they sold apple pie?

 

After another five minutes of waiting, Milton gestured to a waitress strolling by with his inclined middle finger. “Hey, you think we can get shown to a table?”

 

“Sure. Feel free to show yourself,” she replied with a rolling of her eyes.

 

“Last chance to go back to the fish pond,” Milton warned, seriously wondering if his fallen angel’s questionable choice in restaurants was a result of PTSD. The poor thing had been under a lot of stress lately, what with being manhandled and then losing his powers. It wouldn’t surprise Milton if this was the Accountant’s way of acting out.

 

“I want to sit in that booth, over by the window,” the Accountant said suddenly, pulling on Milton’s sleeve.

 

“Fine. Let’s get this over with.” Milton sighed and let the Accountant lead him over to the booth that still had French fries on the plastic bench, and a half-eaten piece of a sandwich lying directly on top of the table. Along the way, he shivered upon seeing the various empty condiment bottles that were being displayed on the shelves above the tables. He figured that most normal customers would be more concerned about the dust and grime on them than the country they had been imported from. The French waiter had been right – this place was much worse than McDonald’s.

 

“Hold on a minute,” a deep, yet feminine, voice hollered over to them before Milton could kick the French fries off of the bench with the tip of his boot. “I’ll get that.”

 

Milton gratefully moved aside so that a rather plump lady who looked to be in her golden years could begin to clean up the table. She had dyed jet-black hair tied back into a short ponytail with some of her gray roots showing, gunmetal-blue eyes, cheeks as puffy as a chipmunk’s and a ruddy complexion. Her nametag read Mabel and she was huffing as if she had been running a marathon. It wasn’t too hard to guess that she probably sampled the merchandise during her breaks.

 

“Thank you,” the Accountant said politely, his cheeks a little pinker than they had been a moment ago.

 

“You’re welcome, sweetie,” Mabel said kindly to the Accountant. When the Accountant sat down opposite Milton, Mabel did a double take. Most customers probably came in shirtless or wearing their sweats, so seeing a man decked out in his finest no doubt stunned her. “Well, aren’t you handsome,” she complimented him openly.

 

Seeing the Accountant actually blush at the compliment raised Milton’s hackles. Why did it seem like them coming into this restaurant and being served by this particular waitress was no coincidence? Wasn’t this the same waitress who had been lugging takeout orders into the parking lot?   Why would his fallen angel even react in such a way to Mabel the sixty-something-year-old roly poly? Did he have a fetish that Milton didn’t know about?

 

“What can I get for you, sweetie?” Mabel continued to fawn over the Accountant, watching him nervously glance through the menu.

 

“Can you recommend something?”

 

“I sure can!” She leaned in closer to the Accountant and whispered to him. “Order the chicken sandwich. It’s the only thing we don’t make here, so you won’t get sick afterwards.”

 

“Okay. One chicken sandwich please.”

 

“And for you, sir?” Mabel asked Milton, changing her tone back to professionalism friendly.

 

“Give me a double shot of whisky and a rope to hang myself with,” Milton ordered, his expression dead serious.

 

“I’m sorry, sir. We had our liquor license revoked last year. We aren’t allowed to serve alcohol.”

 

“Just give me the same thing he ordered… with a side of arsenic.”

 

Mabel gave Milton a funny look and hurried off to put in their order. As soon as she was out of sight, Milton yelped when the Accountant kicked his shin hard from under the table.

 

“What the fuck?!” Milton glared at the Accountant, expecting to find his fallen angel irritated over his bad behavior, but instead all he saw were two big blue eyes wavering with tears.

 

“Leave her alone, John.” That was all the Accountant said before turning to look out the dusty window, his quivering lips set in a straight line.

 

“You seriously have a thing for her,” Milton snorted in disbelief. “Isn’t that rich? Here I am keeping my hands off all the pretty ladies and you’re throwing yourself at some couch potato twice your age.”

 

“Watch your mouth!” The Accountant seized the peppershaker in his right hand, gripping it so hard it looked like it would explode. Or he might hurl it at his traveling companion.

 

Milton sat back, startled, this being the first time the Accountant’s venomous anger had been directed at him. The first and only other time he had seen it was when the Accountant had been fighting Reggie. What had he done to deserve his fallen angel’s animosity? Surely this couldn’t be over that simple-minded waitress. Before he could think of something to say, Mabel was back at their table with two glasses of water and a basket of complimentary buns that looked pretty damn stale.

 

“You okay, sweetie?” She asked the Accountant. “You look kind of upset.”

 

Milton tensely watched his fallen angel drop the peppershaker back onto the table and smile tearfully up at Mabel – their waitress. The smile was so incongruous with his tears that it came off looking slightly unbalanced. “No, I’m not upset.”

 

“Aww, sweetie, are you fighting with your boyfriend?” Much to Milton’s horror, Mabel plopped herself down on the bench beside the Accountant and hugged him. “There, there,” she consoled him, patting him gently on the back. “I’m sure he’s not all bad.”

 

“Hey, lady, I’m sitting right here,” Milton said bitterly. He half expected his fallen angel to do something else that was out of character, like cop a feel of Mabel’s ample bosom. What he didn’t expect was for his fallen angel to wrap both arms around the woman and start crying, rubbing his face against hers in that affectionate way of his. That was not a sign of lust. That was something else. Something that had a dark, sinister feel to it. “Whoa… blue eyes, let Mabel go.” He got up from his seat and tried to pry his fallen angel’s hands off of Mabel’s blouse, but to no avail. “Come on, get it together. I don’t want to spend the night in jail for sexual harassment.”

 

“It’s okay, I don’t mind,” Mabel said, sounding a little choked up herself. “Just let him be. He’ll calm down.”

 

“You don’t know the first thing about him, lady,” Milton muttered.

 

“And maybe you don’t either,” she countered, still patting the Accountant on the back and not complaining when his tears soaked the shoulder of her blouse. Thankfully there weren’t any other customers in their section, so no one tried to fend off the Accountant on Mabel’s behalf.

 

Milton hung back, feeling incredibly awkward, but mainly like an asshole for wrongfully assuming that his fallen angel would want to leave his side. Although he had no idea why the Accountant had reacted so strongly to Mabel the waitress, he was positively sure that it had nothing to do with romance. He was also pretty damn certain that the Accountant had spotted Mabel from the parking lot and then figured out what section of the restaurant she was working in. That would explain why it had taken his fallen angel a full twenty minutes to decide where he wanted to sit. What a picture the two of them made. A tall, slender, attractive man in a three hundred thousand dollar suit crying into the arms of a plump waitress wearing a white apron over a sickly pastel pink dress who was probably living on the poverty line.

 

“You going to be alright, sweetie?” Mabel asked kindly when the Accountant seemed to be out of tears. When the Accountant nodded mutely, Mabel slowly released him. “I think you could do with some cherry pie. We don’t make the desserts here either, so you won’t get food poisoning,” she smiled reassuringly at both of her customers before making her way back to the kitchen.

 

After Mabel had vacated the seat next to the Accountant, Milton took over, sitting beside his fallen angel and pulling him into a fierce embrace. “I’m sorry, blue eyes. I shouldn’t have said those mean things about Mabel. I was just jealous… I thought that you were attracted to her.”

 

The Accountant relaxed in Milton’s arms, allowing himself to be comforted. “That’s a very disturbing assumption, John. As you said, she is twice my age.”

 

“So… what is it then?” Milton tried to phrase his next question as delicately as he could. “Can you sense she’s going to die soon or something?”

 

The Accountant wildly shook his head, pushing away from Milton to look at him with his terrified eyes. “No! Mabel can’t die! You can’t let Mabel die, John!”

 

“Okay, okay!” Milton shushed his fallen angel and kept one arm around him. “Nothing’s gonna happen to Mabel, okay? See, she’s over there helping herself to the French fries on your plate. Looks fine to me.”

 

Mabel wobbled back to their table with a round tray holding their lunches, having a bit of trouble keeping the dishes from sliding to one end of the tray. The coffee cups looked like they were about to tip off the edge, but she seemed to be oblivious to that fact. Wanting to avert a disaster, Milton quickly got up and took the tray from her hands.

 

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Mabel protested firmly.

 

“Trust me, lady, I do.” For one thing, he didn’t want to see shards of ceramic scattered all over the floor. For another, he needed to get back into his fallen angel’s good graces, and being nice to Mabel was one sure way of getting there. Milton served his own table, removing everything from the tray before handing it back to Mabel.

 

“Thank you,” Mabel said with a smile, her gaze lingering on the Accountant before she was off again to the kitchen.

 

As soon as the Accountant bit into his sandwich, it looked like he was in heaven. Milton was unfortunately misled by his fallen angel’s enthusiastic chewing, biting into his own sandwich and tasting nothing but dry wheat and tough chicken breast. He forced himself to chew what was in his mouth and swallow, chasing it down with a gulp of scalding hot coffee that tasted like motor fuel. “How’s your sandwich?” Milton asked as casually as he could.

 

“It’s terrible, John. I’ve never tasted a sandwich this bad before.” But the Accountant smiled as he complained and took another bite of the sandwich, his eyes never leaving the plump waitress who was gossiping with the kitchen staff in front of the order window.

 

* * *

 

By the time their lunch was finished, Milton had made three trips to the restroom to flush most of his lunch down the toilet, so as not to offend dear Mabel. Once his fallen angel had caught onto his ill-mannered behavior, he found himself discarding for two. He had had a full hour to consider his fallen angel’s fascination with Mabel and come to the conclusion that it was harmless. She was a nice lady, and she was kind to his fallen angel, so he had no problem with that. There were worse things to worry about in a relationship, like in-laws and psycho siblings. He decided he wasn’t going to begrudge his fallen angel one friendly roly poly waitress.

 

Before the bill came, the Accountant got up to use the restroom. Milton watched him heading towards the back of the restaurant and sighed. Trust his luck, falling for an incredibly attractive – yet inhumanly complex – creature who… obviously couldn’t read English. Milton cleared his throat loudly when the Accountant turned right instead of left at the back of the restaurant, pushing through the door with a sign above it that read _staff only_. “Blue eyes!” He hissed, turning back to his seat when one of the young, starry-eyed waitresses shot him a disgusted look. After less than thirty seconds had passed, the Accountant reappeared and innocently strode over to the washroom.

 

Mabel came over with the bill just as the Accountant was getting back to his seat. Without asking, she put it down in front of Milton, and stopped the Accountant from sitting down. “You take care, you hear, sweetie? You make sure he treats you right.” And then she hugged him, and he returned her hug with just as much warmth, having to lean down a bit because she only reached his shoulder in height.

 

“I tried to treat him right but he chose to come here instead,” Milton sighed, daydreaming about poached fruits swimming in a caramel sauce.

 

After Mabel had wished them a safe journey and made herself scarce, Milton began to count out the exact change that would cover their bill.

 

“What are you doing?” The Accountant asked testily.

 

“Fifteen dollars and twenty-one cents. That’s what the total came to. Do you have a penny?”

 

“What about the tip? Mabel needs a tip.”

 

“That’s what the dollar over here is for.”

 

“Mabel can’t even buy toilet paper with a dollar.” The Accountant swiped the wad of bills from Milton’s hand and divided it into half. “We don’t need all this money, especially since you will no doubt put us up in another roach motel tonight.”

 

“Are you insane?! You’re tipping five hundred dollars?!”

 

“It’s Mabel,” he insisted, as if that was explanation enough.

 

Milton closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He would not kill his fallen angel. He would not call Mabel names. He would not hold the cashier up at gunpoint to make up for the lost cash. Finally, he opened his eyes and glared at his fallen angel, making a point of slapping the five hundred dollars in twenties onto the tabletop. “Hurry up and get your ass in the car before I change my mind. We still need to buy some real food to eat before one of us faints on the road.”

 

“Thank you, John!”

 

They were halfway to the car when they heard an exulted scream from inside the restaurant. Milton jumped into the car and expertly got the ignition running again. “Quick! Lock your door!” From the rearview mirror, Milton spotted Mabel coming after them in a mad dash, her face red and her eyes sparkling. Before she could get anywhere near the car, Milton accelerated out of the parking lot, glancing over at the passenger’s seat to see his fallen angel gazing out the window in remorse. That would be the last they saw of dear old Mabel.

 


	7. Chapter 7

The next motel they stayed at had only one floor, bullet holes in the wall above the single bed, and a box of contaminated ice out in the parking lot. They had eaten supermarket salads, half a roasted chicken, and more French fries for lunch. Real French fries this time. And then they had gone through a Krispy Kreme drive-thru for donuts about an hour after that. It was the all-American diet – carbs, oil, and sugar with a bunch of leafy greens on the side. Dinner was still a while off, so that left them with a few hours to kill.

 

“Are you sure you can’t take a few more hours in the car?” Milton asked, looking down at his fallen angel who was sprawled over the bed, using Milton’s lap as a pillow. “This place is shitty, even by my standards.” He combed his fingers through that light brown hair, earning a contented sigh from his fed up companion.

 

“I’m tired.”

 

“You could have slept in the car.”

 

“My legs are cramped.”

 

“That’s what the backseat is for. It’s way cleaner than this bed.”

 

“Just don’t pull off the comforter and keep your head away from the pillow,” the Accountant sagely advised.

 

“What’s wrong with the pillow?”

 

“I think I saw head lice.”

 

That did it! “Get up!”

 

“Why?” The Accountant asked drowsily. “This is my spot.” He patted Milton’s thigh and closed his eyes again.

 

“You can have your spot back over at the Hilton. I’m not paying to sleep in a bed that has any kind of bugs in it.” At the mention of the Hilton, the Accountant was on his feet and halfway out the door before Milton could finish speaking.

 

The Hilton was just down the road so it took all of five minutes to relocate themselves, and another ten after that to book a twin room on the eleventh floor. After what they’d just come from, the Hilton looked like a palace suitable for royalty. The room was immaculate and without an insect to be found. Not that the Accountant didn’t try really hard to find one. The mattresses were well padded and bouncy, easing Milton’s sore back and stiff legs. He kicked off his boots, wrestled his jacket off and lay back on the bed closest to the window. “Blue eyes, come here,” he beckoned, holding his arms open in expectation.

 

The Accountant slowly approached the bed, sitting on the edge of it to take off his shoes. He then crawled across the bed and into Milton’s arms, being drawn into an incredibly slow, passionate kiss. Although Milton knew that his fallen angel had little experience with kissing, he sensed that the innocent creature preferred open-mouthed kissing with tongues to just lips.   Every time his tongue stroked over the Accountant’s, his fallen angel would try to capture it with his teeth. Then his fallen angel experimented with closing his lips on Milton’s tongue to see if he could keep it in his mouth longer. Milton responded to the seductive tactic, flipping his fallen angel onto his back and kissing him deeper. The kiss that had started off nice and relaxing, now snowballed into heady sensations and urges that the Accountant obviously didn’t know what to do with.

 

Milton wrapped one arm around his fallen angel, holding him close and listening to him moan into the kiss. The innocent creature seemed to have been made for him, insatiably demanding more attention, which he was only too happy to give. He grabbed the back of the Accountant’s shirt and tugged it out of his pants. Using the opening that he had made, he pushed his hand up inside the shirt and lay it flat on his fallen angel’s lower back. The Accountant was obviously unfamiliar with the sensation of bare skin touching bare skin, because he tried to squirm away from Milton’s hand at first. But Milton stroked his hand up that smooth back and down again, as if he were trying to calm a spooked animal, not stopping until his fallen angel had adjusted to the stimulus.

 

“It’s really hot in here,” Milton complained, removing his hand briefly to pull off his t-shirt.

 

“It’s not _that_ hot in here, John.” The Accountant gazed up at Milton with a twinge of distrust in his bright, blue eyes. But that emotion quickly changed to something else – curiosity.

 

“Okay, so that was really obvious. You know, I usually just strip down without saying a word. I thought that--.” Whatever Milton was about to say died in his throat when his fallen angel reached up and stroked a hand through his chest hair. It was pure torture allowing his fallen angel to pet the thick dark hairs that covered the expanse of his chest, and trailed off down to the waistband of his pants where they disappeared, without doing anything. Although he wanted to do terribly erotic things to his fallen angel, he forced himself to remain in control of his hormones.

 

“Why didn’t I see this earlier on?”

 

“Probably because I didn’t want you to. And when we were fighting Reggie’s gang this morning, you seemed to be more interested in my dick than in my chest hairs.”

 

The Accountant gave Milton an innocent look and denied having done anything so lewd. “I wasn’t interested. It was just… out there.” He hesitated before asking yet another question. “Why is your hair blonde?” He asked, referring to the hair on Milton’s head.

 

“I dye it. The fur you’re playing with is closer to my real hair color.”

 

“Fur?”

 

“It’s a joke. Some of the ladies aren’t into chest hair.”

 

The Accountant narrowed his eyes at Milton. “I don’t want to hear about your whore collection, John.”

 

“Whoa! Sometimes you’ve got quite a mouth on you, blue eyes.” Milton bent down to kiss his fallen angel again, sneakily catching his fingers on a shirt button in the process. When the Accountant tried to stop him, he gently pushed his hand away. “I just want to look. I’ve never seen you without this shirt on,” he insisted.

 

“There’s nothing to see. I don’t have chest hairs.” The Accountant reached for Milton’s hand again, and again he was deterred from stopping the unbuttoning of his shirt.

 

Thinking that his fallen angel just needed a distraction, Milton found that sensitive spot on the side of his neck and began to lick him there. As soon as Milton’s lips latched onto the fading mark that he had put there the other day, he felt his fallen angel tremble all over. He sucked on that patch of skin, grazing it with his teeth, as his hand traveled down the Accountant’s body, undoing the shirt buttons there, one at a time. Soon the pleasurable sensation became too much for his fallen angel, his moans breaking off into gasps of pain. Milton pulled away, trying to ignore the black collar that was blocking access to other parts of his fallen angel’s neck. But he had succeeded in completely unbuttoning the white shirt that had been acting as a barrier between him and his fallen angel. He tugged it open and pushed it back and off of the Accountant’s shoulders, drinking in his perfectly smooth skin. There wasn’t an extra ounce of fat anywhere on the Accountant’s body. He didn’t have any musculature that stood out either, but he was exquisitely sculpted in the ideal representation of a slender, male model. All flat planes and angles that Milton couldn’t wait to get his hands all over.

 

“You’re really something,” Milton praised, undoing the platinum cufflinks so that he could pull the shirt off of his fallen angel’s arms. When he looked down again, he was excited to find those smoldering blue eyes gazing up at him expectantly. Holding himself steady with one arm, and keeping his overeager erection away from his innocent companion, Milton began to explore the warm body beneath him. His hand started out on the Accountant’s shoulder, his palm sweeping down the length of one arm, down to a gracefully shaped wrist. He lifted the Accountant’s hand up to trace his long, slim fingers, and followed the line of his carefully trimmed fingernails. By the time he was finished with the one hand, his fallen angel was breathing a lot quicker and struggling to keep quiet. Milton repeated the same motions on the Accountant’s left arm, but this time he traced his fingers along his fallen angel’s open palm. Now his fallen angel was biting on his lower lip and gripping the comforter in his right hand. “Well, look at that. You do like to be touched,” he gently teased.

 

“Only by you, John,” the Accountant replied, his voice a breathless whisper.

 

It was a true test of Milton’s character to just touch his fallen angel like this. Every little moan that the Accountant let escape, or every shiver that caused his body to move involuntarily, made Milton’s nether regions ache. But his fallen angel was not resisting him at all, which meant that Milton could keep touching him, and that was enough for now.

 

Milton placed his hand on the Accountant’s throat, below the collar, and let it glide down his chest, over one side of his ribs, and down to his abdomen. He kept his hand there for a moment, listening to his fallen angel’s moans grow louder. They were like music to his ears. When he moved his hand back up to slide his palm over one of the Accountant’s nipples, he suddenly had his hand whacked aside. He looked down at his fallen angel to find that those familiar blue eyes were so dark that they were almost sapphire, the pupils dilated to the point that there wasn’t much blue left to see. “You okay, blue eyes?” He asked carefully, keeping his hand where the Accountant could see it.

 

The Accountant held his hand up in warning, prepared to hit Milton again if he so much as twitched.

 

Milton watched the slender creature’s expression slowly change from confusion back to arousal. He flexed his fingers impatiently, giving his fallen angel another minute before he moved in close again. “Can I touch you again?” The only response he got was a short nod. But first he pushed his thumb between his fallen angel’s soft lips, forcing his teeth away. “Stop doing that before you break the skin,” he warned. Instead, he took hold of both of the Accountant’s hands and placed them onto his thighs that were well insulated by his jeans. “If it gets too intense, you can grab onto me. Okay?” Again, he got another nod and nothing else. Maybe he had reduced his fallen angel to monosyllabic gestures. Milton returned his hand to the Accountant’s right nipple, flicking it gently with the tip of his finger. Nearly a second later, Milton felt a crushing pressure in his thighs as the Accountant really dug his fingers in. But the Accountant wasn’t capable of actually hurting him, although he was welcome to try.

 

“John…” The Accountant moaned, tensing up when Milton rubbed harder.

 

When Milton bent down to lick over the Accountant’s taut nipple, he was unprepared for his fallen angel’s reaction. The hands on his thighs disappeared and reappeared in his hair, grasping him firmly and holding him in place. His fallen angel was moaning harshly, his eyes closed tightly against the pleasure that he couldn’t control but still wanted more of. Milton narrowed his eyes predatorily and set to work expertly licking his fallen angel, giving him what he desired. He dragged his tongue over the pebbly hard nipple, traced around it with the tip of his tongue, and then closed his lips around it to begin sucking. The fingers in his hair gripped him tighter, almost violently, keeping him in that position. Milton continued to suck until the Accountant started to push him away, not being able to take anymore. So Milton moved to his fallen angel’s left nipple, lathing it with just as much attention. By the time he was finished, his fallen angel was a gasping, trembling mess.

 

“N—no more, John… please… no more,” the Accountant pleaded, lying there looking like he was in the throes of ecstasy.

 

“Okay. No more.” Milton kissed his fallen angel and stiffly repositioned his legs on the bed. He was so hard he was starting to get cramps. As he was beginning to climb off of the bed, his fallen angel stopped him by pulling on his arm.

 

“What are we, John?”

 

That was the question that Milton had been dreading ever since he allowed himself to become emotionally involved with this innocent creature. It wasn’t so much what they were, but what they could be allowed to become. His main goal had been to protect his fallen angel and get him to someone who could help them with their situation. Hopefully that someone would know someone else who might be able to get that accursed dog collar off of his property. He was aware that it was completely wrong of him to think of the Accountant as something that belonged to him, but that’s where he was at now – defining his fallen angel as _his_ and his alone. “I’m not sure how to go about defining what we are, blue eyes. How about we just say that you’re mine and leave it at that?” And leave the complications for another time.

 

Incredibly, that seemed to please the Accountant, keeping him quiet for a few minutes. Until Milton couldn’t sit there any longer, pretending that he wasn’t itching to unzip his pants to release the pressure there.

 

Milton got off the bed and stiffly made his way for the washroom.

 

“Does that help?”

 

Milton glanced back at his dazed fallen angel, not knowing what he was being asked. “Does what help, blue eyes?”

 

“ _That_ …,” the Accountant bashfully pointed to Milton’s erection and then gestured vaguely in the direction of the washroom.

 

“Oh.” Milton had been so busy keeping his own arousal at bay that he hadn’t noticed that his fallen angel had been equally affected. “Do you need… help?” His voice cracked on the last word. He sure wouldn’t mind _helping_.

 

“No, thank you. I’ve seen men in front of the urinals often enough to know what to do with it.”

 

Milton watched his fallen angel strut over to the washroom, his legs obviously shaky and his balance off, visually appreciating that deliciously perfect body. However, as soon as the washroom door closed and locked, he came to his senses. “Hey! Blue eyes! What the fuck?! I needed in there first!”

 

* * *

 

Sometime close to midnight, the Accountant lay in Milton’s arms, winding the man’s dark chest hairs around his fingers. They were sharing the sheets this time, so the Accountant had free access to everything that Milton hadn’t covered up. Two hours earlier, they had enjoyed the best meal that the Hilton had to offer – a mouth-watering creamy crab pasta, cocktail shrimps, real steamed vegetables and not the frozen crap, a filet mignon that they had shared, a baguette that should have been dipped into the pasta but ended up in the champagne instead, a bunch of fresh fruits, and a platter of three different kinds of cake. Plus all the liquor that Milton could afford. The whole thing had emptied Milton’s pockets, but it had been worth it.

 

After the dinner, they had returned to their room, showered, and gotten comfortable in the bed to watch TV. A little while after that, Milton had begun to snore, so the Accountant had turned off the TV and placed a towel over his companion’s face. He had removed it again when the snoring stopped, and then just laid there, counting the minutes pass.

 

Half an hour after Milton showed no signs of awareness, the Accountant slipped quietly out of the bed. He quickly shirked off the oversized shirt that he had on – this time a baby blue one with the Louis Vuitton logo over the pocket – and got dressed. Then he went about the hotel room, busying himself with a few menial tasks. Once he was done with that, he carefully crept over to the door, opened it, and disappeared into the hallway.

 

The lights in the hallway were a lot dimmer than they had been after dinner. It was probably the Hilton’s way of either trying to save money, or save the environment, but it just made the path to the elevator seem longer and creepy. Once inside the elevator, the Accountant pushed the button for the lobby and watched the numbers fly by on the way down.

 

The lobby was eerily lit as well and no one was at the front desk, which was fine with the Accountant because he knew where he was going. If he had wanted directions, he would have stolen a map. Reminding himself that the only thing that was different was the lighting, the Accountant confidently strode outside the building. Almost immediately, he felt nervous because it was a lot darker than he had imagined it would be. This was not a highly populated area, so the city hadn’t felt the need to install lights that actually worked. Half the lights in the area were a miserable, faded brownish-orange, or completely dead. The only lights that were actually working were the ones inside the Hilton and above the parking lot. Well, he had excellent vision so it wasn’t like he required the lights anyway.

 

As the Accountant strolled down the sidewalk, he began to think that this adventure was not going to be as tough as he’d thought. The streets were empty, and the night air was a bit chilly but smelled fresher without all the carbon monoxide that the semi trucks had been spewing into the atmosphere.

 

It was actually rather pleasant being out at night. He could hear owls hooting, rats scurrying across the road, and vicious felines getting into catfights. And up ahead, he could see the motel that they had bailed on, its broken sign flickering crazily in the otherwise dark lot.

 

Twenty minutes into his adventure, the Accountant began to feel lonely. He missed Milton. Although they had only been traveling together for the past two days – now going on three – he felt strongly attached to _his_ Milton. If Milton owned him, didn’t he own Milton in return? The idea seemed logical to the Accountant, so he let himself get comfortable with his own possessive way of thinking. Everything was so much more fun with Milton. Eating with Milton. Exchanging sarcastic insults with Milton. Playing sexual games with Milton. Milton had awoken something inside of him that had such a ravenous appetite that he really wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with it.

 

Had he missed the street? Where were the houses? Why was it taking so long to get there? It wasn’t like the Accountant walked slow. If anything, he needed to slow down more so that he wouldn’t attract so much attention. But the darkened side streets were making him nervous. So nervous in fact that he began to fidget with the cufflinks on his shirt.

 

Maybe he should have just told Milton the truth. But no, he couldn’t chance his Milton ridiculing him or calling him a fool. This was something he needed to do alone. And anyway, it wouldn’t take long. He would be back in that warm bed with his Milton before his absence was even noticed.

 

“Hey! Would’ja look at this?”

 

The Accountant came to a dead stop in front of a small kid’s playground where two men, who were obviously not kids, were smoking up. No, that couldn’t be right. Cigarettes go in the mouth. These rolled up cylindrical tubes were being directed into the one man’s nostrils. They were most definitely snorting up, not smoking up.

 

“I think it’s past your bedtime, pretty-boy,” the second man jeered, finishing inhaling the drag of street crack before he tossed the empty paper aside. Both men advanced on the Accountant, the first one flipping out a switchblade.

 

“I don’t have any money,” the Accountant said carefully, beginning to back away from them. He had already assessed their weak spots, so he knew where to hit them, but he didn’t have anything to hit them with. No dark telekinesis. Nothing to throw. And no Milton to protect him.

 

“That’s fine. Because we take other forms of payment,” the second man, the one who looked like a sample sheet of tattoos, laughed at him.

 

“Stay away from me.”

 

“Is this guy for real?” The tattooed man’s needle-punctured friend laughed as well, circling the Accountant to cut off his only escape route. “ _Stay away from me_ ,” he imitated his prey, over-exaggerating the fear that he’d detected in the Accountant’s voice.

 

The Accountant scanned the area for somewhere he could escape to. The playground ended in a fence and he had no idea what was beyond the fence. The path behind him was out of the question because he knew that there was twenty minutes of absolutely nothing back there. That only left the path that the tattooed freak was blocking him from. If he could run fast enough, he could get past him. How fast could a druggy run anyway? But the Accountant hesitated, feeling the weight of the satanic collar around his neck. He had misjudged one of these evil men before and it had cost him his powers and damaged his fashionable image. He couldn’t afford to make another mistake like that. But what choice did he have? It was either run or be taken down.

 

“Why don’t you just come quietly and we’ll make it easy on you,” needle-man suggested with mock kindness.

 

Perhaps there was another tactic he could try. Milton was notorious, wasn’t he? If he was a legend in Hell, surely his name must hold some weight on Earth, too. “I belong to John Milton, so you had better back off or risk losing your balls,” the Accountant threatened.

 

For a second, the tattooed freak paused, running the name over in his head. “You belong to John Milton did you say?” He gritted his teeth as he spat the name out. “Well, ain’t that a bitch, cuz I’ve been waiting to get some payback on that motherfucker for _years_!”

 

“We’ll be sure to gift wrap you for Milton… once we’re done,” needle-man sadistically promised.

 

That was not the response the Accountant had been hoping for. He reacted instantly, sprinting for the area up ahead, keeping as far away from tattoo-man as he could. But tattoo-man moved surprisingly fast for a man that was high and didn’t look to be in the best of shape. He tore after the Accountant, nearly on his heels, panting hard like a raging beast. The Accountant ran faster, the slippery leather of his expensive shoes slapping the pavement. He was also breathing hard, his heart beating so fast that he thought it might break. Behind him, he could only hear the sounds of one set of sneakers. At least he had lost needle-man – the junkie with the switchblade. But the Accountant’s relief was short-lived as an adrenaline powered hand grabbed onto the collar of his suit jacket and pulled. He expected to be stopped and to have to defend himself. When he ended up being thrown onto the pavement instead, he wasn’t able to comprehend the pain that his elbows and knees exploded with. He had never fallen before, so it hadn’t occurred to him to use his hands to brace his fall. He had instinctively tried to protect his hands, thinking that they were of more use to him than his elbows. But he began to think differently when he felt a sticky wetness coating his skin inside his jacket and pants.

 

“Why are you crying?” Tattoo-man taunted. “I haven’t even started yet.”

 

The Accountant struggled to get up, moaning when the pain in his knees began to throb worse. But needle-man was catching up. He knew that these two men would tear him apart if he let them. Why had he left without Milton? What could he do to protect himself? He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t run. Not now. He could only cower on the ground in terror.

 

“You’re gonna behave now?” Tattoo-man solemnly shook his head. “Like I said, we would’ve gone easy on you… before you brought up that piece of shit Milton. But if you belong to Milton, we’re just gonna treat you like a piece of meat.”

 

The Accountant remembered Milton, sorrowfully wondering if he would survive what these men intended to do to him so that he could make it back to his Milton. He wanted to be back in Milton’s arms, snuggling against Milton’s bearlike hairy chest. And then, he remembered something else about Milton – there was no such thing as a clean fight. Shaking with fear and hoping that his next actions wouldn’t get him killed, he inconspicuously removed one of his cufflinks. Tattoo-man was stooping down to grab him by his jacket, wrenching him up off of the pavement. Anything else that tattoo-man may have wanted to do ended abruptly when the Accountant stabbed him in the crotch with his cufflink.

 

“Gyaa!! You fucking little prick!”

 

The Accountant was up and on his feet before either tattoo-man could recover, or needle-man could catch up. He tore through the streets, his arms and legs filled with a blinding pain that only got worse the faster he ran. He had run about two hundred meters when he realized that someone was behind him. It couldn’t be tattoo-man, so it had to be needle-man. Where could he run to? He was injured and needle-man was not. It wouldn’t take long before he was trapped again against a lunatic. But this time the lunatic had a weapon.

 

From somewhere to the left, the Accountant could hear the sound of running water. There were a lot of trees in that direction, too – places to hide. He strayed off of the side street and headed for the water, noting that needle-man was falling behind. Thank goodness for the negative effects of drug abuse.

 

As he got closer to the trees, the Accountant could now hear the sound of traffic. Loud traffic. Past the trees, he could barely make out the large, concrete barrier that separated the residential area from the highway. He was so screwed. There was no way over the barrier and not a house in sight. And there weren’t enough trees to hide behind. But the water… The Accountant slipped down an incline, finding a small stream in the darkness. He followed the current, stumbling on the uneven grass, until the stream began to open up into a small river. Eventually, he reached a very low bridge that didn’t have enough clearance underneath it for a dog to pass through. Less than a hundred meters behind him, he heard needle-man cursing in a psychotic rage. Left with no choice, the Accountant waded into the river, got down onto his belly, and crawled underneath the bridge.

 

Sharp rocks pricked and scratched the Accountant’s trembling hands as he dragged himself under the bridge, pressing as close to the waterbed as he could. His clothes were drenched by that time, making it more difficult to move. Somehow he managed to conceal himself just as needle-man came crashing into the river. The Accountant tried to keep perfectly still and quiet, but his teeth were chattering, and it wasn’t because of the water temperature. He pressed the side of his hand up against his mouth and bit into it, listening frantically for needle-man’s presence.

 

“Hey, pretty-boy, I saw you come through here,” needle-man shouted. “There’s nowhere to hide… If you don’t come out now, I’ll tear you to pieces when I get my hands on you.”

 

The Accountant closed his eyes and tried to think of non-claustrophobic thoughts while he lay hidden in his dark, cramped, wading pool of a hiding spot. His entire body was submerged in the water, but he kept his head above it, straining his neck to make sure that he didn’t swallow any of the pollution that was flowing around him. If the city intended to build houses in this area in the future, they would have to make sure the water wasn’t contaminated because it was flowing awfully close to a kid’s playground. But uncontaminated didn’t mean clean or safe for drinking.

 

“Come out, you bitch!”

 

The sound of a knife slashing up tree branches and cutting through leaves left the Accountant shivering even harder.

 

“You might have somewhere else to be, but I don’t. I can wait here all night,” he shouted in a singsong voice.

 

How long was all night? The Accountant didn’t think he would last more than an hour under the bridge. The tiny rocks were biting into his flesh, making his knee and elbow injuries sting and ache, and the water was unpleasantly cold.

 

“Did you find him?!”

 

Tattoo-man! They were both searching for him now. It wouldn’t be long before they found him and did horrible things to him. The Accountant bit down harder on his hand to stifle his sobs, his tears mixing with the questionable water source that rose up to lap at his left cheek.


	8. Chapter 8

Although Milton couldn’t get drunk in Hell, he had no problem getting buzzed on Earth. It still took a lot to do it, but all that beer, wine, and whisky that he’d had with dinner had done a pretty admirable job of getting him mildly drunk. He had managed to persuade his fallen angel to sample a glass of champagne with him, but the beverage hadn’t been very well received. After one sip, the Accountant was dipping his baguette in it to tone down the fuzzy feeling that he didn’t seem to like. So, Milton had ended up finishing the champagne bottle, too.

 

Drunk or sober, drinking all that alcohol always ended in the same result – the desperate need for the toilet.

 

Milton nearly fell off the side of the bed in his haste to get to the washroom. He groggily found the light switch in the washroom, and next the toilet, then relieved himself without closing the door. When he was intoxicated, he tended to forget the little manners that he did have, as well as not taking his surroundings into consideration. What would his fallen angel have to say about him leaving the door open? Well, at least he had flushed the toilet.

 

Milton stumbled back to bed, stubbing his toe on a chair leg as he passed by the desk. “Fuck it!” The room itself was still dark, so he had to feel his way back to his side of the bed. He groped for the pillow as he crashed onto the bed, and then reached for his fallen angel. But he came up empty-handed. “Blue eyes?” He patted down the other side of the bed, squinting to see in the darkness. His fallen angel was not in the bed.

 

Getting out of the bed again, Milton stalked around to the bed closest to the door. It was still made, with no pretty creature in sight. What the fuck?

 

“Blue eyes?!” Milton stormed over to the main light switch at the entrance and slapped it on. Now entirely sober, he scanned the room in a way that only a skilled criminal could. He noted what had been in the room before but now was missing – mainly his fallen angel and that three hundred thousand dollar suit. Then his attention was drawn to anything that had been moved or added. There was a small post-it note stuck to the bottom, right hand corner of the mirror.

 

_john_

_in case you wake up and find me missing don’t worry i will be back soon_

_i just had something that i needed to do_

_your blue eyes_

_His_ fallen angel had to be taught how to use proper punctuation in a sentence, as well as not to take off in the middle of the night. Something to do? What the hell did he have to do? And how long had he been gone? It was… nearly one o’clock in the a.m.

 

Milton picked his jeans up off of the floor and pulled them on, followed by his t-shirt and jacket. The Accountant could not be allowed to wander around in the middle of the night. Did he have no concept of how dangerous it was for a man looking like him to be out at this time?! But where had he gone?

 

The bottom shelf of the nightstand suddenly caught his attention. There was a great big, white book sitting on it. When they’d come in, that book had been sitting face up, but now it was face down. Milton grabbed it and began to flip through it. Why had his fallen angel been looking through the White Pages? He flipped through it twice before coming to a page that had a slight crease in it. Opening the book up on the bed, he dragged his finger through the names listed under ‘S’, all the while getting a bad feeling about the whole situation. His suspicions were confirmed when he located a ‘Sheridan, Mabel’ in the middle of the page. What the hell was it with his fallen angel and that roly poly? Mabel’s address was about a twenty-minute drive from the Hilton, ten if he gunned it. He should find his fallen angel at that address. And that was only supposing the Accountant had actually known where he was headed in the first place.

 

* * *

 

“Did you check the water?” Tattoo-man asked Needle-man, the fury in his voice reaching the Accountant’s hiding spot.

 

The Accountant tried to make himself smaller, panicking that maybe they would be able to see his light hair above the water if they looked hard enough. From somewhere near the bridge, he heard a branch snap, and then it was plunged into the water, uncomfortably close to his position.

 

“I’m checking the water now,” Needle-man chuckled, stabbing the branch in again and again, as if he were trying to spear a fish. It was too dark to make out actual shapes in the water, so he was most likely hoping to get lucky.

 

“Are you sure he didn’t run up ahead?”

 

“Nah, I was looking the whole time. He’s here, alright.”

 

The Accountant shifted a little, tilted his head back, and soaked his hair in the water. Unless they suspected that he was actually under the bridge, they would have no reason to search there. Neither of them would be able to fit under it, so they might not suspect that he had succeeded in squeezing into such a small space.

 

“You got a light?”

 

“Now, man? I’m busy.”

 

“To search the water, you jackass!”

 

“Ah… let me check.”

 

 _No. No. No!_ If they shone a light under the bridge, they would find him for sure. They would drag him out and kill him. But before they killed him… He would rather die than find out what they would do to him if they got their hands on him. Where was his Milton? Was he still sleeping in bed? Was he lonely without him? The Accountant’s fear intensified the second he heard Needle-man click his lighter on.

 

“Now get down there and look harder! And I get him first for that little stunt he pulled.”

 

“You okay, man?”

 

“Do I look okay? That bitch put a hole in my balls!”

 

“That’s just wrong,” Needle-man said solemnly, as if chasing down an innocent stranger and trying to rape them was nothing to feel guilty about.

 

* * *

 

Milton sped to the address he had found on Mabel Sheridan, taking the most direct route, and getting there in under eight minutes. The friendly roly poly lived in a small apartment building that had seen better days. It was all brick and quite sturdy, but the lot that it had been built on was in a serious state of neglect. Any of the grass that was remaining was dry and burnt, having not been watered in days. The big dumpster out back was overflowing with black garbage bags, and there were rats milling around it. And since there weren’t any cars in the parking lot, it was being used by three homeless people as a temporary camping site.

 

Milton pulled up alongside the homeless people and rolled down the window. “Hey, buddy, you been up all night?”

 

The old man gave him a mystified look but gravely nodded.

 

“Have you seen a man in a suit around here in the past hour?”

 

“A lot of men come by here at night,” he replied matter-of-factly. “Gotta be more specific than that.”

 

Great! A lot of men usually equaled prostitution on one end or the other, which meant danger for his fallen angel. “He’s tall, slender, has pretty blue eyes and light brown hair.”

 

“Nope. Haven’t seen anyone like that around here.”

 

“Not in the last hour?” Milton asked to be sure.

 

“Not ever,” the old man scoffed.

 

“Thanks.” Milton passed him a dollar and reversed out of the parking lot. He was really beginning to worry by that point. If the Accountant hadn’t made it to Mabel’s apartment, he had most likely run into trouble somewhere along the way.

 

Milton cruised back the way he had come, craning his neck to the right and left, trying to look for signs of anything unusual. Just as he was about to pull back onto the main road, he noticed that there was a side street off to the right with a big construction sign that read _Under Development_. Half the road was unfinished so it would be hard on the tires and brutal on the underbody of an expensive car. But to a pedestrian, it might just make an appealing shortcut.

 

Maneuvering around the sign, Milton drove onto the gravel road, the suspension of the car protesting against all the bumps and potholes the tires sank into. The street was nothing but a bunch of empty lots, probably still in the planning stage. The highway was running parallel to this new street, separated by one of those noise-reducing concrete barriers. Further up, Milton could barely make out a cluster of trees and a black zigzagging streak that represented a body of water. Either a river or stream. And in the middle of that body of water were two men. One was burning his fingers on a lighter that he was waving back and forth across the water, and the other was thrusting a tree branch into the area that his buddy illuminated for him.

 

Milton threw the car into park and got out, pulling his gun out of the back of his pants and thumbing off the safety. He came up behind the two men, thinking that he knew them from somewhere, and pointed the barrel of the gun at the tattooed man’s head. They were so engrossed in their little hunting game that they didn’t notice Milton until it was too late.

 

“What are you doing?” Milton asked in a deadly quiet tone.

 

As soon as the tattooed man saw Milton, his face paled. “Fishing! What does it look like we’re doing?”

 

“Fishing for what?” Milton ground out between his clenched teeth. He knew a motherfucking liar when he saw one. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” When the other man tried to approach him with a switchblade concealed behind his back, Milton whipped the gun at his face, knocking him into the water. He returned the gun to its original position and calmly repeated his question. “I asked you, what are you fishing for?”

 

“Fish,” Tattoo-man stubbornly insisted.

 

Acting on a hunch, Milton kept the gun leveled on Tattoo-man and hollered as loud as he could. “Blue eyes! Are you here? Blue eyes, come on out!” In front of him, Tattoo-man began to tremble nervously. Milton listened intently, glancing in the direction of a low bridge when he heard the scrape of rocks and then the sound of some waterlogged material being lifted out of the water.

 

“John?”

 

Milton reacted to the terrified sound of his fallen angel’s voice, executing both men with a bullet to the head without bothering with any more questions. He rushed over to his fallen angel, embracing him tightly. The Accountant was freezing, shivering, and soaked from head to toe.

 

“I’m sorry, John. I’m sorry,” the Accountant sobbed, clinging to Milton’s jacket and falling apart in his arms.

 

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” Milton didn’t have the energy to feel angry. He was just incredibly relieved that he had found his fallen angel in time. He said nothing else, silently leading the poor terrified creature back to the car. “Get into the back and strip,” he commanded, holding up the blanket that he’d stolen from the first hotel. Under normal circumstances, he would have expected his fallen angel to defy him, but this time he got only obedience. Soon he was sitting in the backseat holding the blanket around his naked, shivering fallen angel. “I know where you were going,” he said as he tried to transfer some of his body heat to the slender creature in his arms. “What you did tonight was really dangerous and I want to know why you think Mabel Sheridan was worth taking that kind of risk.”

 

The Accountant miserably lowered his head and experimentally touched the bloody sore spot on his left elbow. “I wanted to make sure Mabel was safe.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because she’s Mabel.”

 

Milton was careful with the next question. Sometimes the Accountant had a roundabout way of answering a question that only brought up more questions, or didn’t offer any information at all. “Are you related to Mabel Sheridan?” Now that was really reaching, but he had to start somewhere.

 

“You know that I am from Heaven. I can’t be related to Mabel.”

 

“Okay then… Who does she remind you of?” Milton could actually feel the Accountant tense up at that question. “Blue eyes?” It seemed like his fallen angel was too choked up to answer, so Milton put the pieces of the puzzle together and came to his own conclusion. “She reminds you of your mother, doesn’t she?” The ominous silence was all the confirmation Milton needed to begin making connections between the Accountant, Mabel, and the Accountant’s mother. He also began to speculate on the reason why the Accountant had become a fallen angel, as well as his peculiar hesitancy towards all things sexual. “Okay, blue eyes, this is what’s going to happen. We’re going to go back to the hotel and get you warmed up. And then you’re going to tell me the _whole_ story – from the beginning. And after that, we’ll go and see Mabel together. How does that sound?”

 

“Okay, John,” the Accountant quietly agreed, already resigned to what he now had no choice but to share with his traveling companion.

 

* * *

 

Quite a while after the Accountant had finished telling his tragic tale of suffering, loss, and abandonment, Milton was still going over the details in his head. Here he’d been thinking that he had been dealt an unfair hand in fate when his fallen angel had been carrying around a burden far too heavy for those slender shoulders alone to bear. When Milton had learned of his daughter’s brutal murder, he had already been many years dead, the connection between parent and child severed long ago. But that girl had been his flesh and blood, and all he had left in the world, so it had been only natural for him to rampage through Hell in order to get back to the Earth. He hadn’t squandered a single minute of his time once he’d returned to the land of the living. He had brutalized, maimed, and bludgeoned any man or woman who had been even remotely connected to the death of his only child. His vengeance had been the only thing that had kept him from riding the rails to insanity in that god-forsaken hole that Satan kept tossing him in.

 

But the Accountant’s story had been far worse than anything Milton could have imagined. Given the mischievous creature’s destructive behavior and sarcastic wit, Milton had always assumed that he’d gotten himself kicked out of Heaven on principle alone. How wrong he had been.

 

Milton looked down at his sad fallen angel who was curled up in his arms, having been sapped of all his energy and forced into an unnatural slumber. There was no more hiding the long sealed away emotional scarring that the Accountant had glossed over with his playful indifference and innocent curiosity. Even in his sleep, the Accountant’s lips were firmly pressed together in a tormented frown, and he was making soft noises of protest, as if fighting off demons in a nightmare.

 

The bed creaked slightly as Milton shifted closer still, trying to offer his fallen angel whatever support he could, even if it were just his familiar scent and body heat.

 

Milton closed his eyes and tried to imagine how anyone could have chosen to punish the Accountant for doing what had been both his moral obligation as a son, and his absolute right where retribution was concerned.

 

The first detail of the Accountant’s history had shocked Milton because it had illustrated just how ignorant he had been of the workings of Heaven. “ _Your mother wasn’t an angel?”_ He had asked stupidly when the Accountant – with his elbows and knees bandaged up from his fall – had sat down on the bed and explained as much. Weren’t all the creatures in Heaven angels? Whenever anyone brought up Heaven, that’s all Milton could picture – clouds and clouds of white-winged angels. All decked out in finely spun white robes and dining in splendor beside glorious landscapes, exchanging banal pleasantries that would make any modern man want to go and hang himself.

 

_“No. How could she be? You should be aware by now that all angels must be--.”_

_“Virgins. Yeah, I get that part. So then, what was she?”_ If she had been a virgin, Milton would have really had a hard time trying to understand how the Accountant had come to be. But still, he couldn’t get over the stereotype of delicate chaste creatures whooshing through the air on their glowing white wings.

_“One of many celestial guardians,”_ the Accountant had answered plainly, as if that should be sufficient information enough.

_“What do they guard?”_ That question had caused the Accountant to fidget uncomfortably, like a child ashamed of his mother’s occupation.

 

_“Various things… like peace, nature, the ozone layer.”_

_“That sounds pretty bizarre. What did you mother guard?”_

_“Passion.”_

_“Come again?”_ But the Accountant hadn’t been willing to repeat himself, so Milton had been left with a mouthful of questions that he’d been forced to swallow down for fear of destroying the progress that he had been making with his fallen angel.

 

 _“My mother was a free spirit and very popular among the other celestial guardians. She had many… companions.”_ The Accountant had rushed along with the description of his mother, only revealing what he had thought was relevant to the discussion.

_“When you say ‘companions’, you mean sexual partners, right?”_ Milton had confirmed as delicately as he could.

 

 _“You could have just left the euphemism alone,”_ the Accountant had rudely replied. _“Anyway, because she was the celestial guardian of passion, her vocation involved enlightening others of the… uh… um…”_

Milton had never heard his fallen angel stumble over his words like that before. The poor creature was genuinely too embarrassed to give voice to what his mother had spent a good portion of her life doing – having pure, unbridled, sanctioned sex. In some other parts of the universe that weren’t as holy as Heaven, the Accountant’s mother might have been called far less savory things, like _concubine, prostitute,_ or _nymphomaniac._ But hey, who was Milton to judge?

 

 _“She had a lot of sex. I get it,”_ Milton had finally cut in when it didn’t look like the Accountant could get past the X-rated part of his story. _“I’m sorry if this sounds insensitive, but I just don’t get what your mother and the roly poly have in common? Mabel doesn’t seem like the promiscuous type.”_

_“My mother was kind and generous, as well as round and stout with dark hair and grey eyes… like Mabel. Mabel is so much like my mother used to be…”_

Okay, so the Accountant had been attracted to Mabel’s familiar appearance, as well as her jolly personality. But if the Accountant’s mother had been round and stout, with dark hair and grey eyes, then he must’ve gotten his genes from his father. Because judging by the description his fallen angel had just given out, there would be no resemblance between mother and son. Unless the Accountant had been born with dark hair and grey eyes, only to have his hair lighten into a brown shade and his eyes change to that stunning blue color sometime during his childhood. Somehow, Milton just couldn’t see that happening.

 

The rest of the story had gone downhill from there. Milton heard of how none of the Accountant’s mother’s suitors had come forward to claim him as their own. Even after he’d been born and the celestial midwife had prophesized what a great angel he was to become, none of the Accountant’s mother’s _companions_ had expressed any interest in him. Despite the double rejection, the celestial guardian of passion had defiantly decided to raise her son alone, while enduring the constant criticism and ridiculing by the others of her kind. And she hadn’t been the only one who had been treated like a pariah. The Accountant had spent his formative years in solitude, shunned from the normal gatherings of his peers, and reminded time and again of how a real angel would have had two loving parents to take care of him. But the Accountant’s father hadn’t wanted him, so that in turn meant that he hadn’t been worthy of that man’s love. And what use did heaven have for an unloved angel? That would have been enough to leave Milton roiling in fury, but there had been more.

 

As painful as the Accountant’s upbringing had been, he had still been happy to be with his mother because of her kind, loving nature. Her heart had been crafted from an impenetrable substance because she had refused to break, no matter what she was called, or how cut off she felt from her own kind. She had spent every free moment with the Accountant, teaching him all she knew about the world, as well as Heaven and Hell. Instructing him on how he was to protect himself by never breaking any of the rules that Heaven had laid out. So long as he remained in Heaven he would be safe, and that was what she had ultimately wanted for him – a safe and happy future.

 

When the Accountant had gotten to the nastiest part of the story, nothing Milton had said or done had been able to pacify the tortured emotions that had bled out of the poor creature. Like toxic poison oozing out of an infected wound, his words had brought forth nothing but pain and anguish.

 

The Accountant had explained how his mother had come to visit the Earth, as she usually did around Thanksgiving, because human emotions were very potent around that time of year. She nurtured and enhanced the passion that she found stirring in the hearts of mortal men and women, imparting them with a deeper wisdom of their emotions. But that day she had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her infusion of passion had touched the wrong men and, in her mortal form, she hadn’t had the power to hold them off or protect herself. What they had done to her after that had been beyond evil. And afterwards they had left her for dead. Or left her there for the Accountant to find, seconds before her broken and used body had been exhausted of its last ounce of strength.

 

Milton had closed his eyes in grief when the Accountant had tearfully – yet viciously – recounted how he had chased down each and every last one of those men who had raped his mother. How he had exposed his true form to those mortal men – wings and all – and had used his enhanced powers to rip them limb from limb, tearing them apart in a mindless massacre that had permanently stained the Heavenly Annals with its historic sadism. No such level of barbarism or violence had ever been recorded or displayed in Heaven before, and would no doubt ever be again since the Accountant became the first angel to ever be cast out on account of his evil deeds. He had been stripped of his wings and his powers and thrown on Hell’s doorstep, which the powers that be had deemed to be a more suitable environment for him.

 

 _“What about your mother…?”_ Milton had gently asked when his fallen angel had sagged weakly in his arms, emotionally as dry as a bone.

 

 _“Did she return to Heaven?”_ The Accountant had snickered bitterly, his voice dry and paper thin. _“Her soul is damned for all eternity in the in-between where I will never see her again.”_

_“Purgatory…”_ Milton had muttered to himself. For a soul to be sent there, it had to be lacking the necessary evil to be sent to Hell, but impure enough to be repelled from Heaven. Not a good place for anyone to be. And certainly not an appropriate resting spot for a saintly mother whose only real crime was having trusted mortal men.

 

Now that Milton had all of his answers, he felt much closer to his fallen angel, but at the same time all the more cautious. There was a reason why the Accountant was so resistant to sexual intimacy, and it had less to do with him being a virgin and more to do with the way his mother had been taken from him. That was not something that Milton could just lightly put aside. While Milton was fairly confident that he was on the right track with how he was taking things slowly with his fallen angel, he had no clue how to deal with Mabel or the missing father figure in the Accountant’s life. Or the unresolved trauma that continued to eat away at his fallen angel’s heart – the loss of his dear mother. From now on, Milton would need to tread a lot more carefully around matters of family and make absolutely sure that no one ever put a hand on his fallen angel again.


	9. Chapter 9

Although already dead, Milton felt like he was on the verge of dying again as he set his bleary, sleep-deprived eyes on Apartment Number 301 and rapped impatiently on the blinding pink door that was covered in what looked like homemade bumper stickers. No doubt printed off from Mabel’s printer on a delightfully boring Sunday afternoon. Most of the phrases were about being a _better man_ _to thou fellow neighbor_ , or _love cures all_ type of bullshit. It was a wonder that she hadn’t stuck up something really brainless like _love cures cancer_ because that would really piss people off. But Milton’s personal favorite had to be, _Would-be burglars beware! All I have to offer is banana bread and a cup of tea._ “What the fuck?” Milton muttered under his breath. Was that supposed to be funny? Or did Mabel actually have the balls to risk pissing off the druggies and opportunists in the building?

 

After a few seconds, Milton heard movement from inside and the sound of someone heavy leaning up against the door. At least Mabel had the brains to look through the peephole before answering the door to strangers. The next sound Milton identified was that of the security chain being unlatched and two locks being opened. Finally, Mabel’s reddened, puffy face appeared from behind the door, but her kind eyes were regarding Milton with a mixture of suspicion and distrust. And she wouldn’t open the door more than a crack, which was wide enough for her to peer up and down the hallway. Maybe she thought that Milton was one of those asshole burglars who had come looking for some of her shitty banana bread and bulk store tea.

 

“I knew that that tip was too good to be true,” Mabel finally said with a sigh. “Have you come to take it back?”

 

“Why the fuck would you think that?” Actually… now _there_ was a good idea! When Mabel retreated from the door and began to close it in his face, Milton jammed his foot between it and the doorframe, cringing when that powerful woman went ahead and tried to shut the door on his toes. “Damn it, woman! Would you give me five seconds to explain myself before you go crushing my toes?”

 

“I don’t want any trouble,” Mabel grunted, getting into a shoving match with Milton over the door. “Just let me get your money and then you can leave me alone.”

 

“I didn’t come here to take back the fucking money!” Milton leaned his body weight into the door, swearing when he began to lose ground again. Maybe he should introduce Mabel to that underground wrestling joint that he used to gamble away his money at. She was a natural when it came to brute strength and violent indifference to the pain that she was inflicting on others. “Look, blue eyes is waiting downstairs in the car. If I go back to him and tell him that you not only refused to listen to me, but that you also chopped off my toes, he’s gonna be plenty upset.”

 

“Your handsome companion?” Mabel asked curiously, letting up on the door for an instant, which was all Milton needed to shove it in. “Hey!”

 

“I don’t have time for this shit, woman. My _handsome companion_ is in a lot of danger and can’t be hanging around this neighborhood for much longer. To make a long story short, blue eyes has got a hell of a lot of parental issues, the worst being how his mother was murdered a couple of years ago. You remind him of his mother so he’s taken a liking to you. Although if he saw the shit you just tried to pull with this door I wonder if it would shatter that angelic image that he’s got of you in his head,” Milton added sarcastically.

 

Mabel folded her thick arms in front of her chest and gave Milton a very condescending look. “If he’s hanging out with a gangster like you, I doubt that he’s the judgmental type.” Her expression softened a bit when she asked about the Accountant. “Do you want me to pretend to be his mother?”

 

“What? No! That’s just stupid. He likes you as a mother figure, but he’s not so messed in the head that he needs some piteous role playing performance. He just wants to come up to make sure that you’re doing alright. You know, that you’re eating right, and living in a morally acceptable environment. So if you’re secretly a drug addict or log onto the Internet every night to _rock someone’s world_ , tell me now and I’ll help blue eyes find another roly poly to get all teary-eyed over.” Why Mabel chose that moment to slap him in the face Milton would never figure out. Women occasionally belted him across the face, some harder than others, and every single time he had no idea why.

 

“You can invite that handsome gentleman upstairs. I was just putting together a tuna noodle casserole so you can both stay for lunch.” Her eyes narrowed at Milton, and she didn’t look the least bit apologetic for imprinting her large hand mark on his cheek. “But I promise you, you insulting crabby prick, if you turn out to be a crazed murderer, or a sadistic pimp acting the boyfriend part, I’m going to stab you with my bread knife, stomp on your head, and make sure that you get what’s coming to you.”

 

Wasn’t being stabbed by a bread knife and stomped on enough? What other violent acts was sweet, jolly Mabel capable of? Milton didn’t know what he’d been thinking. Of course Mabel couldn’t be all smiles and rainbows, not if she wanted to survive in the dive of a ghetto that she had moved into. “Your lunch invitation sounds _lovely_ ,” Milton drawled with as much phoniness as he was capable of mustering, which wasn’t much considering that the whole left side of his face was throbbing uncomfortably where Mabel’s meaty palm had whacked him. Maybe Mabel ought to be the one offering to protect his fallen angel and not the other way around.

 

“Tuna noodle casserole is my _favorite_ lunch dish.”

 

“ _Damn it!”_ Milton whirled around defensively, caught his disobedient traveling companion in his arms, and gave him a disapproving glare. “What did I tell you about waiting in the car?”

 

“You instructed me to wait until you had gotten Mabel’s approval to enter her apartment. I gave you a whole five minutes to do so.”

 

Having had a few hours of decent sleep with Milton wrapped protectively around him back at the dazzling Hilton Hotel, the Accountant looked slightly refreshed in his hastily dry cleaned – and patched up – suit. But he had woken up complaining of all manners of aches and pains, and a general stiffness to his limbs, which was to be expected after suffering his second real encounter with injuries as a human. Milton had had to endure nearly half an hour of questioning from his fallen angel that had involved absurd questions such as, _“Can you get hold of a drug that will delete my pain receptors?”_ Or, _“Has anyone ever died from scraped knees?”_ If it had been anyone but the Accountant asking him that, Milton would have been only too happy to point out that whatever drug they were already on was probably more than capable of wiping out everything in their brain – pain receptors and all – and would kill them in due time. As ridiculous as those questions may have been for any normal, sane individual, they were completely forgivable coming from the Accountant. The poor creature had no idea what humans did with physical injuries and was under the not entirely incorrect impression that it was fairly easy to kill regular mortals.

 

“Would you like to come in?” Mabel kindly extended an invitation to the Accountant as soon as she caught sight of him, no doubt falling for that bullshit about tuna noodle casseroles being his preferred lunchtime meal. Milton seriously wondered if his fallen angel even knew what a casserole was.

 

“I would be honored to.” The Accountant accepted the invitation with an uncharacteristically overeager grin and shook Milton off so that he could slip through the doorway of Mabel’s private sanctuary.

 

“Just give me a second to stick the casserole in the oven.” Mabel rushed off in what was obviously the direction of the kitchen, letting her two house guests see themselves in. “Don’t forget to lock the door behind you. And put the chain on!”

 

Milton secured the door and followed close behind the Accountant, muttering a warning for his fallen angel to tone it down a little before he freaked Mabel out. “Try acting like a normal human who is visiting his reclusive mother,” he hissed as they entered the living room, which was just one long stride from the front door. “We don’t want to creep her out, or attract the attention of any of her drug-dealing neighbors.”

 

“Too late for that, John,” the Accountant responded in a normal tone completely audible to Mabel, who had reappeared in the doorway wearing a large apron with a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables printed on it. “You parked a modified sports car between a dumpster and a pile of rusting bicycles. Nothing will attract more attention than that.”

 

“So, what kind of trouble are you boys in?” Mabel asked, cutting to the chase before either of them had had the chance to sit down on her holey, vintage sofa, which was cluttered with a basket of half-used yarn, what looked like a multicolored scarf-in-progress, a few loose jigsaw puzzle pieces, and random garments that were stretched over the back cushions.

 

Before the Accountant could answer with something bizarre that could not be unheard, Milton cleared a spot for him on the sofa, pushed him down onto it, and replied with the simplest explanation he could think of. “There’s a group of bad men trying to kidnap him because of what he’s… uh… worth.”

 

“Am I worth something, John?”

 

“To me you are,” Milton quickly answered, grateful that his invented euphemism for _virginity_ hadn’t been understood by either his companion or the supposed angelic mother stand-in.

 

“Well, that’s just awful,” Mabel gasped as she stood there wringing her hands anxiously. “I saw this docudrama the other night on human trafficking. It was an absolute eye-opener. According to undercover reporter Rebecca Walters, anyone can be a target. Even in the free and just country that we live in. Is that what they want him for?”

 

 _Free and just?_ Since when? Milton gaped at her in wonder, almost forgetting to close his mouth again so that she wouldn’t mistakenly think that he was having a drug-induced episode and attack him with that butter knife. “Yeah… something like that.” Putting the melodrama aside, Mabel was turning out to be a lot more astute and observant than he had given her credit for.

 

“Why don’t you contact the FBI to bust their illegal human smuggling ring? They could put you into the Witness Protection Program if you agree to testify against those criminal bastards. Oh, excuse my language.”

 

“No need to hold back in front of me,” Milton said with a chuckle. “I’ve heard a heck of a lot worse than that.”

 

“And _I_ would rather _not_ hear Mabel speaking like a shady gangster,” the Accountant warned.

 

“You’re a real classy one, aren’t you?” Mabel praised him, as if she were speaking to a gentleman in a fine establishment, which her crumbling apartment certainly was not.

 

It was all Milton could do to hold his tongue and not inform Mabel that the Accountant had gone through a rather extended phase of trying to assimilate all sorts of offensive slang into his otherwise polite repertoire. There was nothing classy about threatening to ram a pole up a man’s ****. “Anyway, moving on from the cussing, we don’t have the option of going to the FBI or the cops.”

 

“Because you have a criminal record?”

 

“Is it that obvious?” Milton asked sarcastically. Although his criminal record was really the least of their worries. There was very little the FBI or the local police could do for a dead man sentenced to spend all eternity in hell or his ethereally dark companion.

 

“Why would you let that stop you? I’ll bet that one in every three people has a criminal record,” Mabel scoffed. “The cops are still obligated to protect the small criminals from the big time ones.”

 

“Seeing as how you’ve never had the pleasure of being arrested, I can understand why your head would be filled with that misconception.”

 

“Who says that I haven’t been arrested?” Mabel crossed both arms in front of her bosom and glared down her nose at Milton who had sat down on the arm of the sofa to be next to his fallen angel. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to judge a book by its cover?”

 

“Oh, come on, what could you have possibly been arrested for?”

 

“I don’t want to hear this.” The Accountant got up, covered his ears with his hands, and took off down the hallway that led deeper into the apartment.

 

“He’s awfully sensitive considering he’s hanging out with you,” Mabel said in amusement.

 

“Yeah, well, his mother was a saint, so you’ve got some awfully big shoes to fill. But seriously, what kind of crimes have you committed?” He couldn’t help it if the thought of dear, sweet Mabel slouching in a chair down at the precinct, with her wrist cuffed to some sergeant’s desk, garnered her a lot more respect than some lame-ass casserole ever would.

 

“I’ve got a few counts of shoplifting, although I’ve never stolen anything expensive enough for it to qualify as grand larceny, another few counts of disturbing the peace when I was preparing for my audition on American Idol, battery… but the asshole I was living with at the time deserved it, and one count of indecent exposure. Now _that’s_ a story that you might find a bit intriguing.”

 

“Uh… right. I think that that’s a story that I’d rather _not_ hear.”

 

“That’s what the judge said before he dismissed my case,” Mabel laughed.

 

“Smart man.” Where had the Accountant disappeared to? Milton seriously hoped that the mischievous creature hadn’t somehow ended up in Mabel’s bedroom on his self-guided tour through the woman’s apartment. There must be all sorts of stimulating memorabilia for a being not of this world to amuse himself with in Mabel’s humble abode. And seeing as how Milton had never anticipated the need to pay a visit to anyone’s home on their journey, he hadn’t had the foresight to educate the Accountant on proper guest etiquette. He had also neglected to mention that most humans, not unlike Milton himself, valued their privacy. _Shit!_ There was no doubt in Milton’s mind that his fallen angel was snooping around in Mabel’s bedroom, probably trying to glean more information about her social and sex life. That’s the first place Milton would go if he wanted to invade someone’s privacy. Should he get up to look for him? No, that was definitely not a good idea. When the Accountant didn’t get his way, he tended to act up and become annoyingly unpredictable. It was probably better that he get it out of his system so that they could get back on the road without any more unexpected detours.

 

Mabel glanced over at the faux wooden cuckoo clock situated on the opposite wall, and began muttering temperatures and baking times to herself. “It should be another forty-five minutes before the casserole is ready. Or was that another thirty-five minutes? The recipe said half an hour at 400 degrees and an extra twenty to thirty minutes at 375… Or was that twenty minutes at 400 and half an hour at 375? What temperature did I leave the oven on? Oh bother, I’d better check.” She was about to head left for the kitchen when she probably realized that the Accountant had not returned from wherever he’d gone. “Where did he go?” She fixed Milton with a searching look before asking, “What’s your partner’s name? I heard him call you John, but I’ve only heard you call him blue eyes.”

 

Partner sounded less presumptuous than _lover_ so Milton chose not to roll his eyes at her choice of words. “Most people know him as the Accountant, but to me he’s just blue eyes.”

 

“Huh,” Mabel grunted, looking unconvinced of something. “So, you’re telling me that you hooked up with him without even asking him his name first? I swear, you gangsters are all alike.”

 

“No, you don’t get it, woman. That _is_ his name. _The Accountant_. I don’t think he was given the option of protesting at the time he was christened with it.” Was _christened_ even the right word to use? Maybe the admission process in Hell used different terms than in Heaven. According to the Accountant’s story, he had been bestowed with his current title after being accepted into Hell. No other way of referring to him had come up during any of their conversations, so Milton had no idea what his name had been while he’d still been a member of Heaven.

 

“I won’t hear any of your excuses. You can’t go around calling someone _the Accountant_ , and _blue eyes_ is probably a nickname that should stay between you and him.” She hovered near the entranceway of the living room for a moment, lost deep in thought, before declaring loudly, “I think I’ll call him _Ignacio_. I think it suits him, don’t you?”

 

“Uh… whatever,” Milton replied in an non-committed tone. He didn’t care one way or the other how Mabel chose to refer to the Accountant. Knowing his fallen angel, the name would most likely be treated like a holier-than-thou gift from the heart. It would be one more novelty in an ever-growing mountain of firsts in the Accountant’s list of experiences on Earth.

 

“I don’t think he’s in the bathroom,” Mabel stated as she peered down the hallway at the other end. “Maybe he went into the storage room… I have a bunch of board games, all my stationery sets, and my sewing machine in there.”

 

“He does love to play games. I’m sure that he’s just looking for your Monopoly… or Life… or whatever the hell people used to bore themselves to death with twenty or thirty years ago.” No, there was no way the Accountant would find any of Mabel’s solitary activities entertaining. If that was all Mabel had to offer, he had to be in the bedroom. “I think that you’d better check on that casserole before it burns.”

 

“You’re an awfully rude man, John. But I’m sure that you’ve heard that before.” Without another word, Mabel rushed into the kitchen to check on her casserole, and Milton swore up a storm when his fallen angel reappeared seconds later with a photo album under one arm, and a raggedy teddy bear under the other.

 

“John, look what I found.” The Accountant placed the photo album down carefully on the coffee table and presented the aging brown bear for Milton to see. “This is Buttons. He came with identification.”

 

“For crying out loud, blue eyes, put that back before she sees it!” Milton tried to shove both the bear and the Accountant back in the direction of the bedroom, but his companion would not budge. Instead, he began to read off the tag attached to the bear’s ear.

 

“Dear Auntie, This is Buttons. I’m sure you will love him as much as he loves you. Love, Beth.” A corner of the Accountant’s mouth turned up into a delighted smile as he contemplated the implications of the sentimental note. “Mabel has a real family, John.” Before Milton could freak out some more, the Accountant reached down to flip open the photo album. “See, this is her sister Charlotte, her brother-in-law Fred, and her niece Beth.” He pointed to a picture that was unmistakably Beth’s 12th birthday party. The candles on the large colorful cake were a dead giveaway, as was the presence of a bunch of other kids going nuts in the background of someone’s expansive backyard. It was obvious that Charlotte was the younger sister because she looked a generation behind Mabel, but she still had the same familiar dark hair and gunmetal blue eyes, although she was a bit on the thinner side and not as short. “Beth looks a lot more mature in the other album. I think she became either a lawyer or a repossession specialist.”

 

“How do you know their names?” Milton asked suspiciously.

 

“They were written on some letters and greeting cards. I also have their address, Beth’s work number and extension, Charlotte’s favorite online cosmetics store, and an invitation from Fred to the opening of his new franchise. He’s apparently the franchise owner of a mattress store in Wyoming. Oh, and this picture,” he flipped halfway through the album to what looked like a picture of Mabel and three other older ladies in matching burgundy and black outfits inside a tiny bowling alley. “These are Mabel’s friends, Trish, Sharon, and Harriet. Trish is Mabel’s best friend from high school, Sharon is her ex-coworker who found a better job as a travel agent, and Harriet is a member of Mabel’s knitting club.”

 

Unbelievable! The little spy! “Okay, you’ve done your inspection. Are you satisfied that Mabel is not an abandoned, friendless misfit?”

 

“I guess so…”

 

“Then put the bear _and_ the photo album back! Before she comes out here and retracts her lunch invitation.”

 

“Bye John,” the Accountant mocked in a high pitched voice as he made Buttons wave farewell to Milton, then he snapped the photo album shut and unhurriedly made his way back to the bedroom.

 

Milton honestly didn’t know whether to crack up laughing at what might have been an attempt at humor on his fallen angel’s part, or have a heart attack when Mabel hollered into the living room. “Should I put pepper on top, or do you want to add your own?”

 

What difference did it make? “We can add it later,” Milton shouted back just to be safe. No sense in risking a choking hazard just in case Mabel was heavy-handed with her spices. He exhaled loudly in relief when the Accountant sat beside him on the sofa again, sans bear or album.

 

“Do you drink beer, John?” Not giving Milton a chance to reply, Mabel answered her own question with a bout of disturbing laughter. “Of course you drink beer. That’s probably all you drink.”

 

Maybe they should worry about Mabel being a bit nutty because she had the tendency to talk to herself, and it wasn’t always a one-sided conversation. “Actually, I drink Whisky,” Milton corrected her, for all the good it did him because she was too busy banging away in the kitchen to notice.

 

“How about you, Ignacio? Do you want beer, white wine, or cranberry juice.”

 

Milton looked over at the Accountant who was going through the balls of yarn, trying to figure out what purpose they served, and completely oblivious to Mabel’s question.

 

“Ignacio? Has the cat got your tongue?”

 

“Why would the cat have someone’s tongue, John?”

 

“She’s talking to you, blue eyes. While you were ransacking her bedroom, batty old Mabel went and named you.”

 

“She named me _the cat got your tongue_?” The Accountant stared at Milton in horror.

 

“No, you moron. She called you Ignacio. I don’t think she picked it randomly, so if you’re really interested, _you_ can ask her what it means.”

 

“Ignacio? I haven’t got all day,” Mabel shouted out at them in a less patient tone than before. “If you don’t pick something, I’ll just go ahead and give you tap water.”

 

“Can I have the juice without the cranberries?” The Accountant asked Milton. “Can you ask her so that I don’t seem impolite?”

 

“He wants cranberry-less juice,” Milton shouted back, doubling over in hysterical laughter when Mabel began to take a fit over the ridiculous request.

 

“What on Earth is cranberry-less juice? Is that supposed to be funny? It wouldn’t be called cranberry juice if it didn’t have any cranberries in it! That’s it, you’re both getting tap water.”

 

At Mabel’s outburst, the Accountant’s eyes went wide and he looked worriedly at Milton. “John, is Mabel angry? She sounds angry. She’s angry at you, not me, right?”

 

Perhaps Mabel and the Accountant were a good match after all. They both cared about each other, despite the fact that they weren’t related, or even from the same world. And they even interacted with each other like a overbearing mother doting over her spoiled son, who had the tendency to irritate her now and then. The only difference was that the Accountant didn’t realize that his rather specific requests and impulsive behavior made him seem erratic and impossible to please. While Milton had been reluctant to let his fallen angel make contact with Mabel again because it was quite risky to remain in the same neighborhood for too long, he felt pretty good at the vibes he was getting from the nutty woman. He was finally beginning to see why the Accountant had instantly taken a liking to her. In fact, Milton figured that every family would be better off with a Mabel in their midst to keep them down-to-earth and honest. Maybe he would end up enjoying that sloppy casserole more than he’d originally anticipated.


End file.
